In Re Physiognomy
I. Identification
Many summers ago I was on one of David MacBrayne’s steamers on the way to a Scotch island. Among the few passengers was an interesting man with whom I fell into conversation. He was vigorous, bulky, tall, with a pointed grey beard and a mass of grey hair under a Panama, and he was bound, he told me, for a well-known fishing-lodge, whither he went every August. He had been a great traveller and knew Persia well; he had also been in Parliament, and one of his sons was in the siege of Mafeking. So much I remember of his affairs; but his name I did not learn. We talked much about books, and I introduced him to Doughty’s “Arabia Deserta.”
I have often thought of him since and wondered who he was, and whenever I have met fishermen or others likely to be acquainted with this attractive and outstanding personality. I have asked about him; but never with success. And then the other day I seemed really to be on the track, for I met a man in a club who also has the annual custom of spending a fortnight or so in the same Scotch island, and he claimed to know every one who has ever visited that retired spot.
This is what happened.
“If you’re so old an islander as that,” I said, “you’re the very person to solve the problem that I have carried about for four or five years. There’s a man who fishes regularly up there”—and then I described my fellow-passenger. “Tell me,” I said, “who he is.”
He considered, knitting his brows.
“You’re sure you’re right in saying he is unusually tall?” he inquired at last.
“Absolutely,” I replied.
“That’s a pity,” he said, “because otherwise it might be Sir Gerald Orpington. Only he’s short. Still, he was in Parliament right enough. But, of course, if it was a tall man it’s not Orpington.”
He considered again.
“You say,” he remarked, “that he had been in Persia? Now old Jack Beresford is tall enough and has plenty of hair, but I swear he’s never been to Persia, and of course he hasn’t a son at all. It’s very odd. Describe him again.”
I described my man again, and he followed every point on his fingers.
“Well,” he said; “I could have sworn I knew every man who ever fished at Blank, but this fellow——Oh, wait a minute! You say he is tall and bulky and had travelled. Why, it must be old Carstairs. And yet it can’t be. Carstairs was never married and was never in Parliament.”
He pondered again.
Then he said, “You’re sure it wasn’t a clean-shaven bald man with a single eyeglass?”
“Quite,” I said.
“Because,” he went on, “if he had been, it would have been old Peterson to the life.”
“He wasn’t bald or clean-shaven,” I said.
“You’re sure he said Blank?” he inquired after another interval of profound thought.
“Absolutely,” I replied.
“Tell me again what he was like. Tell me exactly. I know every one up there; I must know him.”
“He was a vigorous, bulky, very tall man,” I said, “with a pointed beard and a mass of grey hair under a Panama; and he used to go to Blank every August. He had been a great traveller and knew Persia; he had been in Parliament, and one of his sons was in the siege of Mafeking.”
“I don’t know him,” he said.
II. Dr. Sullivan
It had been decided that there never was such a resemblance as is to be traced between my homely features and those of a visitor to the same hotel the previous year—Dr. Sullivan of Harley Street. This had become an established fact, irrefutable like a proposition of Euclid, and one of my new friends, and a friend also of the Harley Street physician who had so satisfyingly and minutely anticipated my countenance, made it the staple of his conversation. “Isn’t this gentleman,” he would say to this and that habitué of the smoking-room as they dropped in from the neighbouring farms at night, “the very image of Dr. Sullivan of Harley Street, who was here last year?” And they would subject my physiognomy to a searching study and agree that I was. Perhaps the nose—a little bigger, don’t you think? or a shade of dissimilarity between the chins (he having, I suppose, only two, confound him!), but, taking it all around, the likeness was extraordinary.
This had been going on for some time, until I was accustomed, if not exactly inured, to it, and was really rather looking forward to the time when, on returning to London, I could trump up a sufficient ailment to justify me in calling upon my double in Harley Street and scrutinising him with my own eyes. But last night my friend had something of a set-back, which may possibly, by deflecting his conversation to other topics, give me relief. I hope so.
It happened like this. We were as usual sitting in the smoking-room, he and I, when another local acquaintance entered—one who, I gathered, had been away for a few weeks and whom I had therefore not yet seen, and who (for this was the really important thing to my friend) consequently had not yet seen me.
In course of time the inevitable occurred. “Don’t you think,” my friend asked, “that this gentleman is the very image of Dr. Sullivan of Harley Street, who was here last summer?”
“What Dr. Sullivan’s that?” the new-comer inquired.
“Dr. Sullivan of Harley Street, who was fishing here last summer. Don’t you remember him? The very image of this gentleman.”
“The only Dr. Sullivan I know,” replied the new-comer, “is Dr. Sullivan of Newcastle. He’s a very old man by now. A very learned man too. He has a wonderful private museum. He——”
“No, no, the Dr. Sullivan I mean was from Harley Street—a specialist—who took the Manor fishing last summer and stayed in the hotel.”
“Dr. Sullivan of Newcastle is a very old man—much older than this gentleman,” replied the stranger, “and not a bit like him. He’s a most interesting personality. He is the great authority on the South Sea Islanders. You should see his collection of Fiji war clubs.”
“But that’s not the Dr. Sullivan I mean. You must remember him,” said my impresario; “we all used to meet evening after evening, just as we’re doing now—Dr. Sullivan of Harley Street, the specialist, a clean-shaven man, exactly like this gentleman here. Every one has noticed the likeness.”
“Dr. Sullivan of Newcastle has a beard,” said the new-comer. “And he’s a very old man by now. A great receptacle of miscellaneous learning. He showed me once his collection of coins and medals. He’s got coins back to the Roman Emperors and stories about every one of them. His collection——”
“Yes, but——”
“—of idols is amazing. You never saw such comic figures as those natives worship. There’s nothing he doesn’t collect. He’s got a mummy covered with blue beads. He’s got skulls from all over the world, showing different formations. It’s some years——”
“Yes, but——”
“—since I saw him last, and of course he may be——”
“Yes, but——”
“—dead. But if not, he’s a man worth knowing. If ever you go to Newcastle, sir,”—this was to me,—“don’t forget about him. But he must be very old by now. He——”
At this point I finished my glass and slipped away to bed. Consulting the mirror as I undressed, I smiled at the reflection that confronted me. “You can sleep more comfortably to-night,” I said, “for there are signs that you are about to have a rest.”