head.

All this bustle and anticipation has caused me to study the general with
a little more attention than, perhaps, I should otherwise have done; and
the few days that he has already passed at the Hall have enabled me, I
think, to furnish a tolerable likeness of him to the reader.

He is, as Master Simon observed, a soldier of the old school, with
powdered head, side locks, and pigtail. His face is shaped like the
stern of a Dutch man-of-war, narrow at top, and wide at bottom, with
full rosy cheeks and a double chin; so, that, to use the cant of the
day, his organs of eating may be said to be powerfully developed.

The general, though a veteran, has seen very little active service,
except the taking of Seringapatam, which forms an era in his history. He
wears a large emerald in his bosom, and a diamond on his finger, which
he got on that occasion, and whoever is unlucky enough to notice either,
is sure to involve himself in the whole history of the siege. To judge
from the general's conversation, the taking of Seringapatam is the most
important affair that has occurred for the last century.

On the approach of warlike times on the Continent, he was rapidly
promoted to get him out of the way of younger officers of merit; until,
having been hoisted to the rank of general, he was quietly laid on the
shelf. Since that time his campaigns have been principally confined to
watering-places; where he drinks the waters for a slight touch of the
liver which he got in India; and plays whist with old dowagers, with
whom he has flirted in his younger days. Indeed he talks of all the
fine women of the last half-century, and, according to hints which he
now and then drops, has enjoyed the particular smiles of many of them.