budding on its black. His small feet were cloistered in small, thick
boots of glittering brilliance. The colour of his face matched that of
his suit. He had no moustache and no whiskers, but a small, stiff grey
beard was rooted somewhere under his chin. He had kept a good deal of
his hair. He was an undersized man, with short arms and legs, and all
his features--mouth, nose, ears, blue eyes--were small and sharp; his
head, as an entirety, was small. His thin mouth was always tightly
shut, except when he spoke. The general expression of his face was one
of suppressed, sarcastic amusement.

He was always referred to as Jimmy Ollerenshaw, and he may strike you as
what is known as a "character," an oddity. His sudden appearance at a
Royal Levée would assuredly have excited remark, and even in Bursley he
diverged from the ordinary; nevertheless, I must expressly warn you
against imagining Mr. Ollerenshaw as an oddity. It is the most difficult
thing in the world for a man named James not to be referred to as Jimmy.
The temptation to the public is almost irresistible. Let him have but a
wart on his nose, and they will regard it as sufficient excuse for
yielding. I do not think that Mr. Ollerenshaw was consciously set down
as an oddity in his native town. Certainly he did not so set down
himself. Certainly he was incapable of freakishness. By the town he was
respected. His views on cottage property, the state of trade, and the
finances of the borough were listened to with a respectful absence of
comment. He was one of the few who had made cottage property pay. It was
said he owned a mile of cottages in Bursley and Turnhill. It was said
that, after Ephraim Tellwright, he was the richest man in Bursley. There
was a slight resemblance of type between Ollerenshaw and Tellwright. But
Tellwright had buried two wives, whereas Ollerenshaw had never got
within arm's length of a woman. The town much preferred Ollerenshaw.