judgment of his acquaintance. But about the mouth and chin of
this man there was a something of a softness, perhaps in the play
of his lips, perhaps in the dimple, which in some degree lessened
the feeling of hardness which was produced by the square brow and
bold, unflinching, combative eyes. They who knew him and like
him were reconciled by the lower face. The greater number who
knew him and did not like him, felt and resented,--even though
in nine cases out of ten they might, express no resentment even
to themselves,--the pugnacity of his steady glance.

For he was essentially one of those men who are always, in the
inner workings of their minds, defending themselves and attacking
others. He could not give a penny to a woman at a crossing
without a look which argued at full length her injustice in
making her demand, and his freedom from all liability let him
walk the crossing as often as he might. He could not seat
himself in a railway carriage without a lesson to his opposite
neighbour that in all the mutual affairs of travelling,
arrangement of feet, disposition of bags, and opening of windows,
it would be that neighbour's duty to submit and his to exact. It
was, however, for the spirit rather than for the thing itself
that he combatted. The woman with the broom got her penny. The
opposite gentleman when once by a glance he had expressed
submission was allowed his own way with the legs and with the
window. I would not say that Ferdinand Lopez was prone to do
ill-natured things; but he was imperious, and he had learned to
carry his empire in his eye.

The reader must submit to be told one or two further and still
smaller details respecting the man, and then the man shall be