stands some five feet ten. He wears an old brown coat, cut after the
fashion of a surtout, that might have fitted him, he says, when he
was a man. But it has lost the right cuff, the left flap, and a part
of the collar; the nefarious moths, too, have made a sieve of its
back. His trowsers are of various colors, greasy down the sides,
ragged at the bottoms, and revealing two encrusted ancles, with feet
stuck into old shoes, turned under at the heels for convenience
sake. A remark from the cribber touches his pride, and borrowing a
few pins he commences pinning together the shattered threads of his
nether garment. A rope-yarn secured about his waist gives a
sailor-like air to his outfit. But, notwithstanding Tom affects the
trim of the craft, the skilled eye can easily detect the deception;
for the craftsman, even under a press of head sail, preserves a
becoming rig.

Indeed, Tom might have attempted without effect, during his natural
life, to transform himself into a sailor. The destroyer was his
victor; the inner man was but a reflex of the outer. He pulled an
old cloth cap over his face, which was immersed in a massive black
beard, bordering two red, swollen cheeks; and with his begrimed
hands he rubbed lustily his inflamed eyes--once brown, large, and
earnest--now glassy and sunken.

"I'm all square, ain't I?" he inquires, looking with vacant stare
into the faces of those who tease him with facetious remarks, then
scans his haberdashery. There yet remains something displeasing to
him. His sense of taste is at stake. This something proves to be a
sooty striped shirt, open in front, and disclosing the remains of a
red flannel under-garment. Every few minutes will he, as if touched
with a sense of shame, wriggle his shoulders, and pull forward the