When Rabourdin sent for him to come down and receive instructions about some particular piece of work, Phellion gave all his mind to it,--listening to every word the chief said, as a dilettante listens to an air at the Opera.

Silent in the office, with his feet in the air resting on a wooden desk, and never moving them, he studied his task conscientiously.

His official letters were written with the utmost gravity, and transmitted the commands of the minister in solemn phrases.
Monsieur Phellion's face was that of a pensive ram, with little color and pitted by the small-pox; the lips were thick and the lower one pendent; the eyes light-blue, and his figure above the common height.
Neat and clean as a master of history and geography in a young ladies' school ought to be, he wore fine linen, a pleated shirt-frill, a black cashmere waistcoat, left open and showing a pair of braces embroidered by his daughter, a diamond in the bosom of his shirt, a black coat, and blue trousers.

In winter he added a nut-colored box-coat with three capes, and carried a loaded stick, necessitated, he said, by the profound solitude of the quarter in which he lived.

He had given up taking snuff, and referred to this reform as a striking example of the empire a man could exercise over himself.