s. His face was a flame of high colour, and his nose
was a burlesque on the nose of Bardolph. It was not merely huge; it was
portentous. It was of the size and shape of a well-grown winter pear,
and it wagged as he walked, touching now one bloated cheek and now the
other. It was garnished with many dark bosses, as if it were ornamented
by round nails of a purple tone, and when once the owner had carried
it fairly under the gas-jet it seemed as if it were the nose which
shed such light as there was to struggle with the fog. 'You see it,'
he cried, with the same short-winded chuckle. 'Everybody sees it
Br-r-r-r-r-r-r!' He shook his head rapidly from side to side, and the
amazing nose tapped either cheek in turn with an actual audible sound
like the faintest clapping of hands. Apart from this deformity and the
sanguine colour of his face he was a jolly-looking fellow, and his brown
eyes twinkled as if they had been transparent, with a flickering light
behind them. 'I got that,' he said, rubbing die nose with the palm
of one hand, 'from my highly respectable grandfather. He was a great
landowner, so I'm told, down Guildford way, and drank more port and
brandy-punch than any man in England. This'--he fondled the nose
again--'this skipped a generation. My highly respectable father's
proboscis was pure Greek--Greek so pure, sir, that the late President
of the Royal Academy has been known to follow him about London in a
hansom-cab from dawn to dewy eve in the hope of catching its outline.
Br-r-r-r-r-r-r!' He wagged the monstrous feature again. He stopped short
with a ludicrous solemnity. 'Your highly respectable name is Armstrong?'
he said with a voice and attitude of courtesy. 'I judged so. You are a
turnover apprentice from the establishment of your highly respectable
father in the country? Exactly. My highly respectable name is Warr, sir.
I am sometimes known as Forty in recognition of a little feat of mine,
in respect of which "let other lips," et cetera. I suppose that I have
never told you----' He was in an attitude of extremest confidence, but
he changed it with a flourish, 'I was told, sir, to be here to meet
you. It is mine to initiate you into the highly respectable mysteries. I
suppose I never told you '--the air of confidence was back again--'that
I am the owner of an heirloom?'

'I don't remember that you ever did,' Paul answered.

'An heirloom,' the man with the nose exclaimed, 'an heirloom which--in
short, a hig