Picture to yourself, then, gentle reader, a small but actively formed
man, with a face of most unusual and portentous ugliness, an uncouth
grin doing the part of a smile; a pair of eyes so small that they would
have been invisible, but for the serpent-like vivacity and brightness
with which they sparkled from their deep sockets, and a profusion of
long hair, coal-black, but lank and uncurled as an Indian's, combed
smoothly down with a degree of care entirely out of keeping with the
other details, whether of dress or countenance, on either cheek. Above
these sleek and cherished tresses he wore a thing which might have
passed for either cap or castor, at the wearer's pleasure; for it was
wholly destitute of brim except for a space some three or four inches
wide over the eye-rows; and the crown had been so pertinaciously and
completely eaten in, that the sides sloped inward at the top, as if to
personate a bishop's mitre; a fishing line was wound about this graceful
and, if its appearance belied it not most foully, odoriferous headdress;
and into the fishing line was stuck the bowl and some two inches of the
shank of a well-sooted pipe. An old red handkerchief was twisted
rope-wise about his lean and scraggy neck, but it by no means sufficed
to hide the scar of what had evidently been a most appalling gash,
extending right across his throat, almost from ear to ear, the great
cicatrix clearly visible like a white line through the thick stubble of
some ten days' standing that graced his chin and neck.
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