On Little's entrance the pupil retired front his uphill work, and glowered with vacillating eyes.

The lad had a fair feminine face, with three ill things in it: a want, a wildness, and a weakness.
To be sure Henry saw it at a disadvantage: for vivid intelligence would come now and then across this mild, wild, vacant face, like the breeze that sweeps a farm-yard pond.
"Good-morning, Little.

This is your fellow-workman." "He does not look up to much," said Henry, with all a workman's bluntness.
"What, you have found him out! Never mind; he can beat the town at one or two things, and it is for these we will use him.

Some call him an idiot.

The expression is neat and vigorous, but not precise; so I have christened him the Anomaly.