“Stooping his short and spare but thick-set figure as he walked, wearing his ill-brushed hat upon the extreme back of his head, clothed in the slovenliest way in a semi-clerical dress of the shabbiest character, he sauntered by with his right arm habitually clasped behind him in his left hand,--altogether presenting to view so distinctly the appearance of a member of one of the mendicant orders, that upon one occasion, in the Rue de Rivoli, an intimate friend of his found it impossible to resist the impulse of slipping a sou into the open palm of his right hand, with the apologetic remark, ‘You _do_ look so like a beggar.’ Apart, however, from his threadbare garb and shambling gait, there were personal traits of character about him which caught the attention almost at a glance, and piqued the curiosity of even the least observant wayfarer. The ‘roguish Hibernian mouth,’ noted in his regard by Mr. Gruneisen, and the gray piercing eyes, that looked up at you so keenly over his spectacles, won your interest in him even upon a first introduction. From the mocking lips soon afterwards, if you fell into conversation with him, came the ‘loud snappish laugh,’ with which, as Mr. Blanchard Jerrold remarks, the Father so frequently evinced his appreciation of a casual witticism--uproarious fits of merriment signalising at other moments one of his own ironical successes, outbursts of fun followed during his later years by the racking cough with which he was too often then tormented.” [Sidenote: Blanchard Jerrold’s _Final Reliques of Father Prout_.]