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| VALUATIONS FOR PROBATE EMIGRATION AGENT |
| PRIVATE ARRANGEMENTS NEGOTIATED WITH CREDITORS |
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| N.B.--ALL KINDS OF RIVER AND CANAL CRAFT BUILT OR REPAIRED, |
| PURCHASED, SOLD, OR TO LET. NOTE THE ADDRESS |
| |

Mr. Hucks, a widower, would have to be content in death with a shorter
epitaph. In life his neighbours and acquaintances knew him as the
toughest old sinner in Bursfield; and indeed his office hours (from 9
a.m. to 9 p.m. nominally--but he was an early riser) allowed him scant
leisure to practice the Christian graces. Yet though many had occasion
to curse Mr. Hucks, few could bring themselves to hate him. The rogue
was so massive, so juicy.

He stood six feet four inches in his office slippers, and measured
fifty-two inches in girth of chest. He habitually smoked the strongest
shag tobacco, and imbibed cold rum and water at short intervals from
morning to night; but these excesses had neither impaired his
complexion, which was ruddy, jovial and almost unwrinkled, nor dimmed
the delusive twinkle of his eyes. These, under a pair of grey bushy
brows, met the world humorously, while they kept watch on it for
unconsidered trifles; but never perhaps so humorously as when their
owner, having clutched his prey, turned a deaf ear to appeal. For the
rest, Mr. Hucks had turned sixty, but without losing his hair, which in
colour and habit resembled a badger's; and although he had lived inland
all his life, carried about with him in his dress, his gait, his speech
an indefinable suggestion of a nautical past. If you tried to fix it,
you found yourself narrowed down to explaining it by the blue jersey he
wore in lieu of shirt and waistcoat. (He buttoned his braces over it,
and tucked its slack inside the waistband of his trousers.) Or, with
luck, you might learn that he habitually slept in a hammock, and
corroborate this by observing the towzled state of his back hair. But
the suggestion was, in fact, far more subtle, pervasive--almost you
might call it an aroma.

The Counting House--so he called the single apartment in which he slung
hi