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from which his long curls (so un-Etonian, but I suppose he had his crew to consider) dripped like black candles about to melt, and you may think I knew him from them, but I did not. Instead of a hand an iron hook protruded from the sleeve of his right arm, and you may think that it was by this I identified him but it was not. His face, cadaverous and wan, was of a hue on which blood of the colour that percolated from him when in conflict would not have been noticeable, but not even by that did I recognize him. All these details I observed anon in combination, but I knew him first as Hook by his extraordinary note of noblesse oblige. I do not mean merely that Etonian was written all over him; this was something even more than that, as if (May I venture?) he was two Etonians rolled by the magnanimous gods into one. Ina word, the handsomest man I have ever seen, though at the same time perhaps slightly disgusting. I could understand how he had been known at Eton as Distingue Hook (afterwards corrupted into Stingy).
"My first impulse (for I always carry a kodak) was to photograph him, but the light was bad, though the moon had paused for a moment (which it often seems to me to do over Eton), as if awaiting some singular transaction. The photograph is imperfect, but I enclose you a copy for reproduction should such be your wish. I watched the solitary from the passage and I say that never could I have conceived a pyramid so Christian. That he was gazing with pe[a]rled
