Norton, a "slender, dandified little fellow, with sleek grey-black hair and an effeminate waxed mustache," who is a "publisher of art novelties." The painting is a life-sized portrait of a degenerate criminal in the act of fleeing the scene of the crime, clutching the severed hand of his victim! Cummings describes this painting in great detail, from the "pig eyes" and "low, retreating forehead" to the "twisted shoulder" and "club foot." This sinister apparition is lacking one of his own hands, and presumably is collecting other people's hands as a means of achieving psychological compensation as well as revenge on the world.