Beginning with a character description

Esther Forbes started chapter 5 of her novel Johnny Tremain with:

Mr Justice Dana was a stout and florid man, dressed in a black silk robe and a great wooly white wig.
Johnny sat close to Mr. Quincy, watching the Justice's nervous, taut hands, listening to his 'What have we heres' and quick questions to the men and women shoved up before him. Some people he dismissed, some he ordered fined, or whipped, or set in the stocks, or held for a higher court. Johnny knew when his own case would be called because he heard the justice tell a beadle to run down to Long Wharf and tell Merchant Lyte to present himself in half an hour.

Write a story beginning with a description of a character.