Queer Judson by Joseph C. Lincoln — Read

Carey Judson swung about on the high stool behind the tall, ink-spattered cherry desk and hitched up one long leg until the heel of the shoe upon the foot attached to the leg was hooked over the upper round of the stool. Then, resting the elbow of a long right arm upon the upraised knee, he lifted a hand--long and thin like the rest of him--drew down a lock of hair until it reached the bridge of his nose, twisted the end of the lock between his thumb and finger, and gazed drearily out of the office window.

A snapshot of him taken in that attitude would have been a far more characteristic likeness than any posed photograph could possibly have been. It would have emphasized the angularity of his figure, the every-which-wayness of his thick light brown hair, the odd manner in which his clothes managed not to fit him, although they had been made by a fashionable city tailor. It might have caught the lines between his brows and at the corners of his wide, pleasantly attractive mouth, perhaps a ghost of the expression in his eyes, eyes which, in their dreamy wistfulness, were curiously reminiscent of those of Abraham Lincoln. In fact, such a snapshot, taken at this time, would, omitting such details as beard and coloring, have been rather like a picture of the great President. Not, however, as to age, for Carey Judson was only thirty-four.