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.