Winona did him the justice to recognize that this disarray was due to no wilfulness of its victim.

He was helpless against a malign current of his being.
He held himself stiff in the parlour until the Pennimans came rustling down the stairway.

He could exult in a long look at the benignant lion back of real bars, but, of course, he could not now reach up to touch the bars.

It would do something to his clothes, even if the watchful and upright Merle had not been there to report a transgression of the rules.
Merle also stood waiting, his hat nicely in one hand.
The judge descended the stairs, monumental in black frock coat, gray trousers, and the lately polished shoes that were like shining relief maps of a hill country.

He carried a lustrous silk hat, which he now paused to make more lustrous, his fingers clutching a sleeve of his coat and pulling it down to make a brush.