For he was taller than I, though not, I thought, much older; two years or so, perhaps.

The cut of his clothes (not their raggedness, though they were ragged as well as patched) confirmed me in my conviction that he was "not exactly a gentleman"; but I felt a little puzzled about him, for, broad as his accent was, he was even less exactly of the Tim Binder and Bob Furniss class.
He was not good-looking, and yet I hardly know any word that would so fittingly describe his face in the repose of sleep, and with that bit of light concentrated upon it, as the word "noble." It was drawn and pinched with pain and the endurance of pain, and I never saw anything so thin, except his hands, which lay close to his sides--both clenched.

But I do think he would have been handsome if his face had not been almost aggressively intelligent when awake, and if his eyebrows and eyelashes had had any colour.

His hair was fair but not bright, and it was straight without being smooth, and tossed into locks that had no grace or curl.

And why he made me think of a Bible picture--Jacob lying at the foot of the ladder to heaven, or something of that sort--I could not tell, and did not puzzle myself to wonder, for the ship was moving, and there was a great deal to be seen out of the window, tiny as it was.
It looked on to the dock, where men were running about in the old bewildering fashion.