This was a great convenience; for it gave him an appearance of good-nature at the small expense of a slight muscular movement which was as easy as winking, and deceived everybody but those who had studied him long and carefully enough to find that this play of his features was what a watch maker would call a detached movement.
He had been a good scholar in college, not so much by hard study as by skilful veneering, and had taken great pains to stand well with the Faculty, at least one of whom, Byles Gridley, A.M., had watched him with no little interest as a man with a promising future, provided he were not so astute as to outwit and overreach himself in his excess of contrivance.

His classmates could not help liking him; as to loving him, none of them would have thought of that.

He was so shrewd, so keen, so full of practical sense, and so good-humored as long as things went on to his liking, that few could resist his fascination.

He had a way of talking with people about what they were interested in, as if it were the one matter in the world nearest to his heart.

But he was commonly trying to find out something, or to produce some impression, as a juggler is working at his miracle while he keeps people's attention by his voluble discourse and make-believe movements.