You couldn't make him understand a thing when he was in a mood like that.

One had better leave him alone.

He was dull.

He was apt to be grumpy.
He was up very early, looking at the statues with his Baedeker.
Sandra Wentworth Williams, ranging the world before breakfast in quest of adventure or a point of view, all in white, not so very tall perhaps, but uncommonly upright--Sandra Williams got Jacob's head exactly on a level with the head of the Hermes of Praxiteles.

The comparison was all in his favour.