I am apt to write as the old man I have grown, though I do believe I felt older then than now.
In any case my young friend was some years my junior.

I afterwards found out that he was six-and-twenty.
I have also called him handsome.

He was the handsomest man that I have ever met, had the frankest face, the finest eyes, the brightest smile.
Yet his bronzed forehead was low, and his mouth rather impudent and bold than truly strong.

And there was a touch of foppery about him, in the enormous white tie and the much-cherished whiskers of the fifties, which was only redeemed by that other touch of devilry that he had shown me in the corridor.

By the rich brown of his complexion, as well as by a certain sort of swagger in his walk, I should have said that he was a naval officer ashore, had he not told me who he was of his own accord.
"By the way," he said, "I ought to give you my name.