WILLIAMS
NATURE does certainly miss the mark sometimes. Williams is a signal instance of it. She made him without any reference to his future career, or station in life, and endowed him with a quite superfluous amount of personal beauty. He is an Apollo to look at, or would be, if he were clean. Unfortunately, he hardly ever is. His avocation does not conduce to it. It takes him into back yards, and cellar entries and coal bins. For Williams is our peripatetic furnace man. He has regular features, a perfect profile, long curling lashes over melting dark eyes, and a high opinion of himself.
Of course one never really looks at a furnace man. It would seem almost indelicate to do so, as if he were an individual, instead of a part of the landscape, an accessory, like the hose or garbage tins, necessary conveniences which one instinctively ignores. But you can hardly help looking at Williams, once you realize him at all. He is such an anomaly,
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