ated old man with a bald head and a
hairy chin. There was a brief lull of repose, before the amusements
resumed their noisy progress. Orders for drink were flying abroad in
all directions. Friends were talking at the tops of their voices, and
strangers were staring at each other--except at the lower end of
the room, where the whole attention of the company was concentrated
strangely upon one man.

The person who thus attracted to himself the wandering curiosity of
all his neighbors had come in late, had taken the first vacant place he
could find near the door, and had sat there listening and looking about
him very quietly. He drank and smoked like the rest of the company; but
never applauded, never laughed, never exhibited the slightest symptom
of astonishment, or pleasure, or impatience, or disgust--though it
was evident, from his manner of entering and giving his orders to the
waiters, that he visited the Snuggery that night for the first time.

He was not in mourning, for there was no band round his hat; but he was
dressed nevertheless in a black frock-coat, waistcoat, and trousers, and
wore black kid gloves. He seemed to be very little at his ease in
this costume, moving his limbs, whenever he changed his position, as
cautiously and constrainedly as if he had been clothed in gossamer
instead of stout black broadcloth, shining with its first new gloss on
it. His face was tanned to a perfectly Moorish brown, was scarred in
two places by the marks of old wounds, and was overgrown by coarse,
iron-grey whiskers, which met under his chin. His eyes were light, and
rather large, and seemed to be always quietly but vigilantly on the
watch. Indeed the whole expression of his face, coarse and heavy as it
was in form, was remarkable for its acuteness, for its cool, collected
penetration, for its habitually observant, passively-watchful look. Any
one guessing at his calling from his manner and appearance would have
set him down immediately as the captain of a merchantman, and would have
been willing to lay any wager that he had been several times round the
world.

But it was not his face, or his dress, or his manner, that drew on him
the attention of all his neighbors; it was his head. Under his hat,
(which was bran new, like everything else he wore), there appeared,
fitting tight round his temples and behind his ears, a black velvet
skull-cap. Not a vestige of hair peeped from under it. All round his
head, as far as could be