One that has been discovered very recently is that the straight-faced are the straight-laced. Notice for yourself and you will find that every person who is really "straight-laced" is a person with a straight face—that is, a face with straighter up-and-down lines than the average.
Think back over those you have known who come under this heading and you will find no actually round-faced people amongst them.
No matter how sanctimonious, religious or correct a person may act when his position or the occasion demands it, if he has a round, "moon" face he is not really straight-laced at heart. Any one who knows him well enough to know his real nature will tell you so.
The Naturally Conventional
¶ The "born Puritan," the ascetic, and the naturally conventional person is, on the other hand, invariably an individual of more severe facial outlines.
This person may be in an unconventional position; your straight-faced, severe-lined person may be a gambler, a boot-legger, or follow any other line defying the conventions; but he is at heart a conservative after all. For instance, you will always find, when you know him, that he does things in a way that is very conventional to him. That is, he has decided standards, rules, habits and requirements, and he clings rigidly to them in the transaction of his business, regardless of how lax the business itself may be.
"A certain way of doing things" means as much to him, at heart, as it means little to the circular-faced people.
Systematic and Methodical
¶ "A place for everything and everything in its place" is a rule preached and practised by people of this type.
The Osseous person does not mislay his things. He knows so well where they are that he can "go straight to them in the dark." Such a man is careful of his tools and keeps his work-bench or desk "shipshape." A woman of this type is an excellent housekeeper. Her sewing basket, dresser drawers and pantry shelves are all systematically arranged in apple-pie order.