Very tall, very thin, with legs and arms that bore the appearance of being too long even for his tall body, great hands and feet, a thin face dark and red, a thin aquiline nose, black hair, and black prominent eyes that seemed to be always on the stare--there sat he, his legs dangling and his fingers working.

A straightforward, honest, simple fellow looked he, all utility and practicalness--if there is such a word.

One, plain in all ways.
It was Janus Verner--never, in the memory of anybody, called anything but "Jan"-- second and youngest son of Lady Verner, brother to Lionel.
_He_ brother to courtly Lionel, to stately Decima, son to refined Lady Verner?
He certainly was; though Lady Verner in her cross moods would declare that Jan must have been changed at nurse--an assertion without foundation, since he had been nursed at home under her own eye.

Never in his life had he been called anything but Jan; address him as Janus, or as Mr.Verner, and it may be questioned if Jan would have answered to it.

People called him "droll," and, if to be of plain, unvarnished manners and speech is to be droll, Jan decidedly was so.