and he distrusted the kind of person who 'd take one look at another man and say in a lordly voice to his companion , 'ah , my dear sir , i can tell you nothing except that he is a left-handed stonemason who has spent some years in the merchant navy and has recently fallen on hard times , ' and then unroll a lot of supercilious commentary about calluses and stance and the state of a man 's boots , when exactly the same comments could apply to a man who was wearing his old clothes because he 'd been doing a spot of home bricklaying for a new barbecue pit , and had been tattooed once when he was drunk and seventeen [ 14 ] and in fact got seasick on a wet pavement .