He also had some other clothes on.
But over all, and pervading the entire man, was the look of hopelessness and corroding grief. With all his good clothes on, he was a hollow mockery, for his eyes were heavy with woe.
The nose also was heavy with woe.
This feature in fact was more appropriately draped in token of its sadness than any of the rest. Few noses are so expressive of a general and incurable gloom as this one was. It had evidently at one time been a glad, joyous, and buoyant nose, but now it was despondent and low spirited.
There was a look of goneness and utter desolation about it that would stir the better impulses of the most heartless.
The feature had evidently tried to centralize itself, but had failed. Here and there narrow strips of court-plaster had gone out after it and tried to win it back, but they had not succeeded.
I said, "Mister, there seems to be a panic among your nose. It's none of my business, of course, but couldn't you get a brass band and call it together? Then you could hold a meeting and decide whether it had better resume or not."
The gentleman from Chicago went through the motions of wiping the wide waste and howling desolation where his once joyous nose had been, and then, putting away the plum-colored silk handkerchief with the orange border, he said "'Squire, I have been grossly deceived. You see in me the victim of a base misrepresentation. In Chicago this season of the year is extremely unhealthy. The intense hot weather carries away the innocent and the good, and I feared that my turn would come soon.
"I heard of the salubrious clime of your mountain city, where the days are filled with gladness and the burning heat of the mighty city by the inland sea never comes.
"I came here two brief days ago, and you can see with the naked eye what the result has been.