I selected from the crowd acquaintances of marked character and standing, and obtained accurate descriptions of them.  Of one he said, “He is a good merchant, and has done and is doing a large business.  He carries his business home with him at night, as he should not.  He has been wealthy, and is now reduced in circumstances.  His disaster weighs heavily upon him.  He has a high sense of honor, a keen conscience, and is a meek, religious man.  He has great goodness of nature, is very modest and retiring, has more ability than he supposes, and is a man of family and very fond of his children.”

Another he accurately described thus:  “He is a mechanic, of a good mind, who has succeeded so well that I doubt if he is in active business.  Certainly he does not labor.  He is very independent and radical,—­can be impudent, if occasion requires,—­gives others all their rights, and pertinaciously insists upon his own.”  Here the mechanic took his hands from his pocket.  “Hold!  I said he was a mechanic.  He is not,—­he is a house-painter.”

I desired to be informed by what indications he judged him to be a painter.  He replied, that he so judged from the general appearance and motions, and that it was difficult to specify.  I insisted, and he remarked that “the easy roll of his wrists was indicative.”

After obtaining similar correct descriptions of men well known to me, I spied one whom I did not know, and who was dressed peculiarly.  I inquired his occupation, and Mr. Sidney, without turning a glance towards me, and still gazing through the half-opened shutters, replied, “Yes! you never saw him before, yourself.  He is a stranger in town, as is evident from the fact of his being dressed in his best suit, and by the manner of his taking observations.  Besides, there is no opportunity in these parts for him to follow his trade.  He is a glass-blower.  You may perceive he is a little deaf, and the curvature of his motions also indicates his occupation.”

Whether this description was correct or not I failed to ascertain.

Mr. Sidney contended that any man of ordinary perceptive faculties need never mistake a gambler, as the marks on the tribe were as distinct as the complexion of the Ethiopian,—­that, of honest callings, dealers in cattle could be most easily discovered,—­that immorality indicated its kind invariably in the muscles of the face,—­that sympathetic qualities, love and the desire of being loved, taste and refinement,—­were among the most perspicuous in the outline of the face.

A man of very gentlemanly appearance was approaching, whom Mr. Sidney pronounced a gambler, and also engaged in some other branch of iniquity.  His appearance was so remarkably good that I doubted.  He turned the corner, and immediately Mr. Sidney hastened to the street and soon returned, saying he had ascertained his history:  that he was in the counterfeiting department,—­that his conscience affected his nerves, and consequently his motions,—­that he was a stranger in town, and was restless and disquieted,—­that he would not remain many hours here, as he had an enterprise on hand, and was about it.  I remarked, that, as the contrary never could be proved, he was perfectly safe in his prophecy, when Mr. Sidney rose from his chair, and, approaching me, slowly said, with great energy,—­