MR. RICKETTY.


Mr. Ricketty is composed of angles. From his high silk hat worn into
dulness, through his black frock coat worn into brightness, along each
leg of his broad-checked trowsers worn into rustiness, down into his
flat, multi-patched boots, he is a long series of unrelieved angles.

Tipped on the back of his head, but well down over it, he wears an
antique high hat, which has assumed that patient, resigned expression
occasionally to be observed in the face of some venerable mule, which,
having long and hopelessly struggled to free herself of a despicable
bondage, at last bows submissively to the inevitable and trudges bravely
on till she dies in her tracks.

Everything about Mr. Ricketty, indeed, appears to have an individual
expression. His heavily lined, indented brow comes out in a sharp angle
over his snappy black eyes, which, sunk far within their sockets, look
just like black beans in an elsewise empty eggshell.