I am inside his room now, standing behind him taking in the glow of the fire and the red damask curtains shielding the door that leads to his bedroom; my eye roving over the bookcases crammed with books, the tables littered with curios and the mantel covered with miniatures and ivories. I invariably do this to discover his newest "find" before he calls my attention to it. As he has not yet moved or given me any other sign of recognition than a gruff "Draw up a chair," in a voice that does not sound a bit like him--his eyes all the time on the smouldering fire, there is yet a chance to look him over before he begins to talk. (We shall all be busy enough listening when he does begin.) I say "ALL," for there is a second visitor close behind me, and the sound of still another footstep can already be heard in the hall below. It is the back of Peter's head now that interests me, and the droop of his shoulders. They always remind me of Leech's sketch of Old Scrooge waiting for Marly's ghost, whenever I come upon him thus unobserved. To-night he not only wears his calico dressing-gown--unheard-of garment in these days--but a red velvet cap pulled over his scalp. Most bald men would have the cap black--but then most bald men have not Peter's eye for color. It's a queer head--this head of Peter Griggs. Not at all like any other head I know. If I should attempt to describe it, I should merely have to say bluntly that it was more like an enlarged hickory-nut than any other object I can think of. It is of the same texture, too, and almost as devoid of hair. Except on his temples, and close down where his collar binds his thin neck, there is really very little hair left; and this is so near the color of the shrivelled skin beneath that I never know where one begins and the other ends. When I face him--and by this time I am facing him--I must admit that the hickory-nut simile still holds. There are no particular features, no decided bumps, no decided hollows; the nose is only an enlarged ridge, the cheeks and eye-sockets only seams. But the eyes count--yes, the eyes count--count so that you see at once that they are the live points of the live coal smouldering beneath.