ornings from half-past nine to eleven or even
twelve, was observed to be of a shape to throw no small light upon his
class and character. Its contour was almost national. Bulging at the
back, and sloping rapidly to a thin and wiry neck, narrow between the
ears and across the brow, prominent in the jaw, the length of a line
drawn from the back headland to the promontory at the chin would have
been extreme. Upon the observer there was impressed the conviction that
here was a skull denoting, by surplusage of length, great precision of
character and disposition to action, and, by deficiency of breadth, a
narrow tenacity which might at times amount to wrong-headedness. The
thin cantankerous neck, on which little hairs grew low, and the
intelligent ears, confirmed this impression; and when his face, with its
clipped hair, dry rosiness, into which the east wind had driven a shade
of yellow and the sun a shade of brown, and grey, rather discontented
eyes, came into view, the observer had no longer any hesitation in saying
that he was in the presence of an Englishman, a landed proprietor, and,
but for Mr. Pendyce's rooted belief to the contrary, an individualist.
His head, indeed, was like nothing so much as the Admiralty Pier at
Dover--that strange long narrow thing, with a slight twist or bend at the
end, which first disturbs the comfort of foreigners arriving on these
shores, and strikes them with a sense of wonder and dismay.

He sat very motionless at his bureau, leaning a little over his papers
like a man to whom things do not come too easily; and every now and then
he stopped to refer to the calendar at his left hand, or to a paper in
one of the many pigeonholes. Open, and almost out of reach, was a back
volume of Punch, of which periodical, as a landed proprietor, he had an
almost professional knowledge. In leisure moments it was one of his
chief recreations to peruse lovingly those aged pictures, and at the
image of John Bull he never failed to think: 'Fancy making an Englishman
out a fat fellow like that!'

It was as though the artist had offered an insult to himself, passing him
over as the type, and conferring that distinction on someone fast going
out of fashion. The Rector, whenever he heard Mr. Pendyce say this,
strenuously opposed him, for he was himself of a square, stout build, and
getting stouter.

With all their aspirations to the character of typical Englishmen, Mr.
Pendyce and Mr. Barter thought the