On the very face of the matter, the proposal was somewhat impudent; for at least my clothing, my horses, and, I trust, my appearance altogether, were those of a man of high birth; but when I came to look my companion over more attentively by the twilight, which did not improve his appearance, it struck me as more impudent still. He was a person of about forty-five years of age, lean, long-limbed, thin-flanked, broad in the shoulders, with as unprepossessing a countenance as it was possible to imagine, and nothing on earth to redeem it from a sort of assassin-like expression, except a merry but somewhat sarcastic glance, which occasionally came into his eyes, or, rather, into one of them, for it was the right eye only which had any movement; and I afterward found that the left was made of glass, though a very good imitation of the other. What might have been the original shape of his nose I do not know; but a large cut across the bridge and down one cheek seemed to indicate that its conformation had been somewhat violently changed into its present Socratic turn upward. His long gray hair, thin and ragged, his unwashed face, his untrimmed beard, all added to the sinister appearance of his countenance, and, in short, no one could look at him without doing him the same bitter injustice that I did him at that moment, and thinking him as murderous and rascally a person as it was possible to set one's eyes on. Besides all this, his garments were anything but that which one would have desired in a friend and companion; for his buff jerkin, besides the rusty stains which had been left upon it after having been worn under ill-cleaned armour, was soiled and dirty in various other ways, and in more than one place patched with a piece of gray cloth. He stood my survey quite quietly; and, indeed, the discrepant gaze of his two eyes rendered it somewhat difficult to tell whether he was looking full in my face or across the inn-yard on the other side. After having remained for about half a minute silent, however, he brought both eyes into a straight line, demanding, in a significant tone. "Am not I an ugly dog?" "Yes," I replied, "you are. But you have made a little mistake, my good friend; I am not seeking companions, but raising a troop to serve under my command." "Then I am the very man you want," he replied; "for I have experience, and you have none, that's clear enough; and I do not much care what I do, whether it be as a leader or follower, so that I do something." "I don't think you would do much credit to my new troop," I replied, "unless you troubled the brook a little oftener, and gave the barber a sous at least once a month."