This gentleman’s white head was unusually large, and his shock of white hair was unusually thick and ample. "I suppose, waiter," he said, shaking his shock of hair, as a Newfoundland dog might shake his before sitting down to dinner, "that a fair lodging for a single buffer might be found in these parts, eh?"
[A "buffer" in this sense is a slightly foolish fellow, used with self-deprecating humor here.]