impudent virulence.

It clattered; and at that signal, through the dusty glass door behind the
painted deal counter, Mr Verloc would issue hastily from the parlour at
the back. His eyes were naturally heavy; he had an air of having
wallowed, fully dressed, all day on an unmade bed. Another man would
have felt such an appearance a distinct disadvantage. In a commercial
transaction of the retail order much depends on the seller's engaging and
amiable aspect. But Mr Verloc knew his business, and remained
undisturbed by any sort of aesthetic doubt about his appearance. With a
firm, steady-eyed impudence, which seemed to hold back the threat of some
abominable menace, he would proceed to sell over the counter some object
looking obviously and scandalously not worth the money which passed in
the transaction: a small cardboard box with apparently nothing inside,
for instance, or one of those carefully closed yellow flimsy envelopes,
or a soiled volume in paper covers with a promising title. Now and then
it happened that one of the faded, yellow dancing girls would get sold to
an amateur, as though she had been alive and young.

Sometimes it was Mrs Verloc who would appear at the call of the cracked
bell. Winnie Verloc was a young woman with a full bust, in a tight
bodice, and with broad hips. Her hair was very tidy. Steady-eyed like
her husband, she preserved an air of unfathomable indifference behind the
rampart of the counter. Then the customer of comparatively tender years
would get suddenly disconcerted at having to deal with a woman, and with
rage in his heart would proffer a request for a bottle of marking ink,
retail value sixpence (price in Verloc's shop one-and-sixpence), which,
once outside, he would drop stealthily into the gutter.

The evening visitors--the men with collars turned up and soft hats rammed