His face was sallow and clean-shaven, and the features seemed neatly drawn on a flat surface rather than modelled, so discreet and so meagre were the sallies and shadows.

His lips were calm and firmly closed, and had always the appearance of smiling; of his eyes one felt the bright, benignant beam rather than the shape or colour.

His straight stiff hair was shorn in rather odd and rather ugly lines along his forehead and temples, and of his clothes the kindest thing to say was that they were unobtrusive.

Franklin had once said of himself, with comic dispassionateness, that he looked like a cheap cigar, and the comparison was apt.

He seemed to have been dried, pressed, and moulded, neatly and expeditiously, by some mechanical process that turned out thousands more just like him.