He was a small man, slender and wiry, with the light skin and ruddy complexion of the British Isles. His mustache was thin and pale, and his hair was thin and had once been pale. The hair was gray now, and it looked like he cut it himself. His clothes had once been good tweed. He looked like a man who had once been someone. Not someone important, just someone. He had been a man who had something to do and a place in the world. -- Act of Fear (1967), by Michael Collins [Dennis Lynds]