His face looked pale and haggard in the light of the gas, and the eyes, fixed in that vacant stare, had a feverish brightness.
Mr.Sheldon was a handsome man--eminently handsome, according to the popular notion of masculine beauty; and if the popular ideal has been a little vulgarised by the waxen gentlemen on whose finely-moulded foreheads the wig-maker is wont to display the specimens of his art, that is no discredit to Mr.Sheldon.His features were regular; the nose a handsome aquiline; the mouth firm and well modelled; the chin and jaw rather heavier than in the waxen ideal of the hair-dresser; the forehead very prominent in the region of the perceptives, but obviously wanting in the higher faculties.

The eye of the phrenologist, unaided by his fingers, must have failed to discover the secrets of Mr.
Sheldon's organisation; for one of the dentist's strong points was his hair, which was very luxuriant, and which he wore in artfully-arranged masses that passed for curls, but which owed their undulating grace rather to a skilful manipulation than to any natural tendency.

It has been said that the rulers of the world are straight-haired men; and Mr.
Sheldon might have been a Napoleon III.

so far as regards this special attribute.

His hair was of a dense black, and his whiskers of the same sombre hue.