Doubtless if any one among them is in possession of any important social secret it will not fail to escape him here.

From meditations of this philosophical character I was suddenly aroused by a violent blow before me, accompanied with an exclamation in very tolerable English of the word, "King!" On the centre of the board which did the office of a table, and directly beneath my eyes, lay a clenched fist of fearful dimensions, that in color and protuberances bore a good deal of resemblance to a freshly unearthed Jerusalem artichoke.

Its sinews seemed to be cracking with tension, and the whole knob was so expressive of intense pugnacity that my eyes involuntarily sought its owner's face.

I had unconsciously taken my seat directly opposite a man whose stature was nearly double that of the compact, bustling sputtering, and sturdy little fellows who were bawling on every side of us, and whose skinny lips, instead of joining in the noise, were so firmly compressed as to render the crevice of the mouth no more strongly marked than a wrinkle in the brow of a man of sixty.

His complexion was naturally fair, but exposure had tanned the skin of his face to the color of the crackle of a roasted pig; those parts which a painter would be apt to term the "high lights" being indicated by touches of red, nearly as bright as fourth-proof brandy.
His eyes were small, stern, fiery, and very gray; and just at the instant they met my admiring look they resembled two stray coals that by some means had got separated from the body of adjacent heat in the face.