In truth, his appearance was that of a duke in disguise, as I imagine dukes to be, for I never set eyes on one.

His dress--he wore a black morning cut-away coat--was faultless.
His manners were exquisite, polite to the verge of irony, but with a hint of haughty pride in the background.

He was handsome also, with a fine nose and a hawk-like eye, while a touch of baldness added to the general effect.

His age may have been anything between thirty-five and forty, and the way he deprived me of my hat and stick, to which I strove to cling, showed, I thought, resolution of character.

Probably, I reflected to myself, he considers me an unusual sort of person who might damage the pictures and other objects of art with the stick, and not seeing his way how to ask me to give it up without suggesting suspicion, has hit upon the expedient of taking my hat also.
In after days Mr.Samuel Savage informed me that I was quite right in this surmise.