y by employers, not as being dishonest, but as
having a taste for being a master rather than a servant. Indeed his
period of servitude was very short. It was not in his nature to be
active on behalf of others. He was soon active for himself, and at
one time it was supposed that he was making a fortune. Then it was
known that he had left his regular business, and it was supposed that
he had lost all that he had ever made or had ever possessed. But
nobody, not even his own bankers or his own lawyer,--not even the old
woman who looked after his linen,--ever really knew the state of his
affairs.

He was certainly a handsome man,--his beauty being of a sort which
men are apt to deny and women to admit lavishly. He was nearly six
feet tall, very dark, and very thin, with regular, well-cut features
indicating little to the physiognomist unless it be the great gift of
self-possession. His hair was cut short, and he wore no beard beyond
an absolutely black moustache. His teeth were perfect in form and
whiteness,--a characteristic which, though it may be a valued item
in a general catalogue of personal attraction, does not generally
recommend a man to the unconscious judgment of his acquaintance.
But about the mouth and chin of this man there was a something of
softness, perhaps in the play of the lips, perhaps in the dimple,
which in some degree lessened the feeling of hardness which was
produced by the square brow and bold, unflinching, combative eyes.
They who knew him and liked him were reconciled by the lower face.
The greater number who knew him and did not like him felt and
resented,--even though in nine cases out of ten they might express no
resentment even to themselves,--the pugnacity of his steady glance.

For he was essentially one of those men who are always, in the inner
workings of their minds, defending themselves and attacking others.
He could not give a penny to a woman at a crossing without a look
which argued at full length her injustice in making her demand, and
his freedom from all liability let him walk the crossing as often as
he might. He could not seat himself in a railway carriage without a
lesson to his opposite neighbour that in all the mutual affairs of
travelling, arrangement of feet, disposition of bags, and opening
of windows, it would be that neighbour's duty to submit and his to
exact. It was, however, for the spirit rather than for the thing
itself that he combatted. The woman with the broom