happened! What a meeting we've had to-night! What do _you_ say,
Dan?'

Richard represented--too favourably to make him anything but an
exception--the best qualities his class can show. He was the English
artisan as we find him on rare occasions, the issue of a good strain
which has managed to procure a sufficiency of food for two or three
generations. His physique was admirable; little short of six feet in
stature, he had shapely shoulders, an erect well-formed head, clean
strong limbs, and a bearing which in natural ease and dignity
matched that of the picked men of the upper class--those fine
creatures whose career, from public school to regimental quarters,
is one exclusive course of bodily training. But the comparison, on
the whole, was to Richard's advantage. By no possibility could he
have assumed that aristocratic vacuity of visage which comes of
carefully induced cerebral atrophy. The air of the workshop suffered
little colour to dwell upon his cheeks; but to features of so
pronounced and intelligent a type this pallor added a distinction.
He had dark brown hair, thick and long, and a cropped beard of hue
somewhat lighter. His eyes were his mother's--keen and direct; but
they had small variety of expression; you could not imagine them
softening to tenderness, or even to thoughtful dreaming. Terribly
wide awake, they seemed to be always looking for the weak points of
whatever they regarded, and their brightness was not seldom
suggestive of malice. His voice was strong and clear; it would ring
out well in public places, which is equivalent to saying that it
hardly invited too intimate conference. You will take for granted
that Richard displayed, alike in attitude and tone, a distinct
consciousness of his points of superiority to the men among whom he
lived; probably he more than suspected that he could have held his