What their
previous estate in life may have been you cannot tell, but you know that
there has been a fall, and that you are looking on a moral wreck. The
types are superficially varied, but an essential sameness, not always
visible at first sight, connects them and enables you to class them as
you would class the specimens in a gallery of the British Museum. As you
walk along on a lonely highway, you meet a man who carries himself with
a kind of jaunty air. His woeful boots show glimpses of bare feet, his
clothes have a bright gloss in places, and they hang untidily; but his
coat is buttoned with an attempt at smartness, and his ill-used hat is
set on rakishly. You note that the man wears a moustache, and you learn
in some mysterious way that he was once accustomed to be very trim and
spruce in person. When he speaks, you find that you have a hint of a
cultivated accent; he sounds the termination "ing" with precision, and
you also notice that such words as "here," "there," "over," are
pronounced with a peculiar broad vowel sound at the end. He cannot look
you boldly in the face, and it is hard to catch a sight of his eyes, but
you may take for granted that the eyes are bad and shifty. The cheeks
are probably a little pendulous, and the jaw hangs with a certain
slackness.
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