Staff could hardly refrain from refreshing himself with a glance at the
individual so singularly labelled. Appraising him covertly, he saw a man
whose stature was quite as much shorter than the normal as his own was
longer, but hardly less thin. Indeed, Staff was in the habit of defining
his own style of architecture as Gothic, and with reasonable excuse; but
reviewing the physical geography of Mr. Iff, the word _emaciation_
bobbed to the surface of the literary mentality: Iff was really
astonishingly slight of build. Otherwise he was rather round-shouldered;
his head was small, bird-like, thinly thatched with hair of a faded tow
colour; his face was sensitively tinted with the faintest of flushes
beneath a skin of natural pallor, and wore an expression curiously naive
and yet shrewd--an effect manufactured by setting the eyes of a child,
round and dimly blue, in a mask of weathered maturity.
Now while Staff was receiving this impression, Mr. Iff looked sharply
round; their glances crossed. Primarily embarrassed to be caught rudely
staring, Staff was next and thoroughly shocked to detect a distinct if
momentary eclipse of one of Mr. Iff's pale blue eyes. Bluntly, openly,
deliberately, Mr. Iff winked at Mr. Staff, and then, having accomplished
his amazement and discomfiture, returned promptly, twinkling, to the
baiting of his clerk.
"Your age, sir?"