If you tried to fix it, you found yourself narrowed down to explaining it by the blue jersey he wore in lieu of shirt and waistcoat.

(He buttoned his braces over it, and tucked its slack inside the waistband of his trousers.) Or, with luck, you might learn that he habitually slept in a hammock, and corroborate this by observing the towzled state of his back hair.

But the suggestion was, in fact, far more subtle, pervasive--almost you might call it an aroma.
The Counting House--so he called the single apartment in which he slung his hammock, wrote up his ledgers, interviewed his customers, and in the intervals cooked his meals on an oil-stove--was, in pact, a store of ample dimensions.

To speak precisely, it measured thirty-six feet by fourteen.

But Mr.Hucks had reduced its habitable space to some eight feet by six, and by the following process.
Over and above the activities mentioned on his business card, he was a landlord, and owned a considerable amount of cottage property, including a whole block of tenement houses hard by The Plain.