Seventeen years old he was, as men measure time; but a century was measured in his lean-lined face, his wrinkled forehead, his hollowed temples, and his deep-sunk eyes.

From his thin legs, fragile-looking as windstraws, the bones of which were sheathed in withered skin with apparently no muscle padding in between--from such frail stems sprouted the torso of a fat man.

The huge and protuberant stomach was amply supported by wide and massive hips, and the shoulders were broad as those of a Hercules.

But, beheld sidewise, there was no depth to those shoulders and the top of the chest.

Almost, at that part of his anatomy, he seemed builded in two dimensions.