ly cleaned more than once a week, was
encircled with a dirty silk handkerchief twisted to a cord; a short
neck, rolling in fat, and heavy cheeks completed the characteristics of
brute force which sculptors give to their caryatids. Minoret-Levrault
was like those statues, with this difference, that whereas they
supported an edifice, he had more than he could well do to support
himself. You will meet many such Atlases in the world. The man's torso
was a block; it was like that of a bull standing on his hind-legs. His
vigorous arms ended in a pair of thick, hard hands, broad and strong
and well able to handle whip, reins, and pitchfork; hands which his
postilions never attempted to trifle with. The enormous stomach of this
giant rested on thighs which were as large as the body of an ordinary
adult, and feet like those of an elephant. Anger was a rare thing with
him, but it was terrible, apoplectic, when it did burst forth. Though
violent and quite incapable of reflection, the man had never done
anything that justified the sinister suggestions of his bodily presence.
To all those who felt afraid of him his postilions would reply, "Oh!
he's not bad."

The master of Nemours, to use the common abbreviation of the country,
wore a velveteen shooting-jacket of bottle-green, trousers of green
linen with great stripes, and an ample yellow waistcoat of goat's
skin, in the pocket of which might be discerned the round outline of
a monstrous snuff-box. A snuff-box to a pug nose is a law without
exception.

A son of the Revolution and a spectator of the Empire, Minoret-Levrault
did not meddle with politics; as to his religious opinions, he had never
set foot in a church except to be married; as to his private principles,
he kept them within the civil code; all that the law did not forbid or
could not prevent he considered right. He never read anything but
the journal of the department of the Seine-et-Oise, and a few printed
instructions relating to his business. He was considered a clever
agriculturist; but his knowledge was only practical. In him the moral
being did not belie the physical. He seldom spoke, and before speaking
he always took a pinch of snuff to give himself time, not to find ideas,
but words. If he had been a talker you would have felt that he was out
of keeping with himself. Reflecting that this elephant minus a trumpet
and without a mind was called Minoret-Levrault, we are compelled to
agree with Sterne as to the oc