He eat his dinner energetically, chatted laconically, but rather pleasantly.

Sturk thought he might be eight-and-forty, or perhaps six or seven-and-fifty--it was a face without a date.

He went over all his points, insignificant features, high forehead, stern countenance, abruptly silent, abruptly speaking, spectacles, harsh voice, harsher laugh, something sinister perhaps, and used for the most part when the joking or the story had a flavour of the sarcastic and the devilish.
The image, as a whole, seemed to Sturk to fill in the outlines of a recollection, which yet was _not_ a recollection.

He could not seize it; it was a decidedly unpleasant impression of having seen him before, but where he could not bring to mind.

'He got me into some confounded trouble some time or other,' thought Sturk, in his uneasy dream; 'the sight of him is like a thump in my stomach.