The Steam-Packet: A Tale of the River and the Ocean — page 30: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

. THE STEAM PACKET, 13 Captain Pentonville hereupon rose solemnly upon his legs, and pre- pared to address the assembly. But, as this gentleman is destined to cut a conspicuous figure in the progress of these memoirs, it will be necessary to give a description of him in this place. Captain Pentonville was a gentleman of about two-and-thirty. His figure was good; but there was a certain swagger in his gait which destroyed the effect that a symmetrical shape would otherwise have produced. ‘There was also a drawback to a countenance naturally handsome: he endeavoured to give an expression of uncommon fierceness to his eyes, nostrils, and mouth, by opening wide the first, dilating the second, and screwing up the last—so that the tout en- semble savoured rather more of the ridiculous than any thing else. He was nearly six feet in height, had a dashing military air, and held himself uncommonly upright. He usually dressed well, in a frock- coat, buttoned tight over the chest, grey trousers, and highly polished boots. THis whiskers were permitted to ‘‘ run to seed;’’ he wore a moustache and an imperial; and his locks were the best advertise- ments which Alexander Rowland and‘Son, of Hatton Garden, could possibly have wished for. They perpetually reminded those who came near their proprietor, of Macassar oil; and as they flowed, in luxuriant waves, over his coat collar, the means of advertisement thus referred to were as ample as they were effectual. Captain Pentonville had been for a few weeks, upon one occasion, on the Continent, and was therefore “a great traveller;’—he had sub-edited a weekly newspaper devoted to military affairs, and was therefore, as he used to hint to new acquaintances in a half whisper, ‘‘ connected with the press ;’’—he had written an account of his trip to Paris, in one volume octavo, and was therefore ‘“‘ an author ;”—he occasionally quoted a scrap of Latin or Greek, and was considered ‘‘ a great classic ;’—he often talked of Lord Noodleton, and was hence declared to be “a man who moved in the best society ;’”—he talked of Macready, Madame Vestris, Ellen Tree, Charles Kemble, and all the members of the corps dramatique, with the confidence of one who is well- informed, and was therefore deemed ‘“‘ the best judge of theatricals in London ;’—and he could drink any other man under the table, and was consequently pronounced to be “a capital fellow.” Others said he was ‘* excellent company ;” and all agreed that he could ‘“ make himself very agreeable if he liked.” All these were certainly great qualifications. Still there were two points in respect to which all his acquaintances and friends remained in a state of Cimmerian darkness, from which he never condescended to relieve them. In the first place, no one could ever ascertain which Gomicbooks (E(0)