No one was so wise along those rivers, no one was so satisfied with himself, that he would not have given much to possess the many things that were hidden away in Dirty Fingers' brain.

One would not have suspected the workings of that brain by a look at Dirty Fingers on the porch of his Good Old Queen Bess.

He was a great soft lump of a man, a giant of flabbiness.

Sitting in his smooth-worn, wooden armchair, he was almost formless.

His head was huge, his hair uncut and scraggy, his face smooth as a baby's, fat as a cherub's, and as expressionless as an apple.