Captain Francis Pavy, 'Railway Trusts'

Ward draws Pavy full-length in formal evening dress — black tailcoat, white bow-tie, waistcoat with a gold fob — one hand in his pocket, the other holding what appears to be a monocle or small instrument. The caption 'Railway Trusts' identifies him not by rank but by financial role: Pavy, a former officer of the 74th Highlanders who saw action in India during the 1857 Revolt, had reinvented himself as a promoter of international railway share trusts, a fashionable and sometimes dubious Victorian investment vehicle. Ward's caricature exaggerates Pavy's most arresting feature — extraordinarily long, braided reddish moustaches — lending him an eccentric distinction that politely mocks the financier-soldier hybrid the age so readily produced.