up his mind on a subject. His
adherents accounted for this by the astonishing magnitude of his ideas. He
conceived every subject on so grand a scale that he had not room in his
head to turn it over and examine both sides of it. Certain it is that if
any matter were propounded to him, on which ordinary mortals would rashly
determine at first glance, he would put on a vague mysterious look, shake
his capacious head, smoke some time in profound silence, and at length
observe that "he had his doubts about the matter;" which gained him the
reputation of a man slow of belief, and not easily imposed upon. What is
more, it gained him a lasting name, for to this habit of the mind has been
attributed his surname of Twiller, which is said to be a corruption of the
original Twijfler, or, in plain English, Doubter.

The person of this illustrious old gentleman was formed and proportioned,
as though it had been moulded by the hands of some cunning Dutch statuary,
as a model of majesty and lordly grandeur. He was exactly five feet six
inches in height and six feet five inches in circumference. His head was
a perfect sphere, and of such stupendous dimensions, that Dame Nature,
with all her sex's ingenuity, would have been puzzled to construct a neck
capable of supporting it; wherefore, she wisely declined the attempt, and
settled it firmly on the top of his backbone; just between the shoulders.
His body was oblong and particularly capacious at bottom, which was wisely
ordered by Providence, seeing that he was a man of sedentary habits, and
very averse to the idle labor of walking.

His legs were short, but sturdy in proportion to the weight they had to
sustain; so that, when erect, he had not a little the appearance of a beer
barrel on skids. His face, that infallible index of the mind, presented a
vast expanse, unfurrowed by any of those lines and angles which disfigure
the human countenance with what is termed expression. Two small gray eyes
twinkled feebly in the midst, like two stars of lesser magnitude in a hazy
firmament; and his full-fed cheeks, which seemed to have taken toll of
everything that went into his mouth, were curiously mottled and streaked
with dusky red, like a Spitzenberg apple.

His habits were as regular as his person. He daily took his four stated
meals; appropriating exactly an hour to each; he smoked and doubted eight
hours, and he slept the remaining twelve of the four-and-twenty. Such was
the renowned Woute