d by
mankind's third shirt-stud. It was full half as broad as it was long,
and lay to the right and left from the centre-line of the face. The
owner of this oriflamme looked like a young Scandinavian god.

There seems to be a deeper significance in hair than meets the eye.
Sons of Esau, whose beards grow high up on their cheek-bones, who are
hairy down to their ankles, and to the second joints of their fingers,
are generally men of a kindly and charitable nature, strong in what we
call the human element. One remembers their stout hand-grip; they look
frankly in one's face, and the heart is apt to go out to them more
spontaneously than to the smooth-faced Jacobs. Such a man was Samson,
whose hair was his strength,--the strength of inborn truth and
goodness, whereby he was enabled to smite the lying Philistines. And
although they once, by their sophistries, managed to get the better
of him for a while, they forgot that good inborn is too vigorous a
matter for any mere razor finally to subdue. See, again, what a great
beard Saint Paul had, and what an outspoken, vigorous heart! Was it
from freak that Greeks and Easterns reverenced beards as symbols of
manhood, dignity, and wisdom? or that Christian Fathers thundered
against the barber, as a violator of divine law? No one, surely, could
accuse that handy, oily, easy little personage of evil intent; but he
symbolized the subtile principle which pares away the natural virtue
of man, and substitutes an artificial polish, which is hypocrisy. It
is to be observed, however, that hair can be representative of natural
evil as well as of good. A tangle-headed bush-ranger does not win our
sympathies. A Mussulman keeps his beard religiously clean.

Meanwhile the yellow-haired Scandinavian, whom we have already laid
under the imputation of being a dandy, stood on the threshold of Mr.
Dyke's office, and that gentleman confronted him with a singularly
inquisitive stare. The visitor's face was a striking one, but can be
described, for the present, only in general terms. He might not be
called handsome; yet a very handsome man would be apt to appear
insignificant beside him. His features showed strength, and were at
the same time cleanly and finely cut. There was freedom in the arch
of his eyebrows, and plenty of eye-room beneath them.

He took off his hat to Mr. Dyke, and smiled at him with artless
superiority, insomuch that the elderly clerk's sixty years were
disconcerted, and the Ce