Hornblower
will ask no further recommendation.
His reputation for tact and delicacy is tremendous; and yet those who
have found themselves opposed to him have never been long in
realising that there was a most redoubtable mailed fist under the
velvet glove. Altogether a remarkable man, whose memoirs would make
absorbing reading, could he be persuaded to write them--which is
quite beyond the bounds of possibility. I had never met him either
professionally or personally, and it was with some eagerness that I
told the office-boy to show him in at once.
Sereno Hornblower did not look the part. His reputation led one to
expect a sort of cross between Uriah Heep and Sherlock Holmes, but
there was nothing secretive or insinuating about his appearance. He
was a bluff and hearty man of middle age, rather heavy-set,
fresh-faced and clean-shaven, and with very bright blue eyes--evidently
a man with a good digestion and a comfortable conscience. Had I met him
on Broadway, I should have taken him for a ripe and finished
comedian. There was about him an air which somehow reminded me of
Joseph Jefferson--perhaps it was his bright blue eyes. It may have
been this very appearance of bluff sincerity and honest downrightness
which accounted for his success.
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