The title, however, was not in recognition of personal prowess, for no more cringing, evasive creature ever existed.
He was little in mind, little in body, and little in his dealings.
If a principle could ever be concrete, Raikes was the embodiment of the grasping and the uselessly abstemious.
He appeared to shun a generous sentiment as one would avoid an infected locality, and usually walked with head tilted and body bent as if engaged in following a clue or intent upon the search of some stray nickel.
He was thoroughly despised by all who knew him, a sentiment which he returned with vicious interest, and never neglected an opportunity of lodging some sneering shaft where it would cause the most irritation.
His character was so much in harmony with these generalizations that he had been described as dividing his laughter into chuckles—if the strident rasp which he indulged could be called by that name—in order that it might last the longer; and that he grinned in grudging instalments.
His obvious possession was an entire row of brick houses, in the most insignificant of which he dwelt.
Over this sparse domicile a spinster sister presided, who reflected, on compulsion, in the manner of a sickly moon, the attenuity and shrivel of her brother.
A nephew of Raikes’ completed the circuit.
This young man intruded upon this strange household an aspect so curiously at variance with that of his rickety elders that he suggested to the fanciful the grim idea of having exhausted the contents of the larder and compelled the other two to shift for themselves.