the symbolism of a mad art attempting the inconceivable. The artist
never turned his head; and in all his soul's application to the task his
back quivered, his thin neck, sunk into a deep hollow at the base of the
skull, seemed ready to snap.

Mr Verloc, after a grunt of disapproving surprise, returned to the sofa.
Alexander Ossipon got up, tall in his threadbare blue serge suit under
the low ceiling, shook off the stiffness of long immobility, and strolled
away into the kitchen (down two steps) to look over Stevie's shoulder. He
came back, pronouncing oracularly: "Very good. Very characteristic,
perfectly typical."

"What's very good?" grunted inquiringly Mr Verloc, settled again in the
corner of the sofa. The other explained his meaning negligently, with a
shade of condescension and a toss of his head towards the kitchen:

"Typical of this form of degeneracy--these drawings, I mean."

"You would call that lad a degenerate, would you?" mumbled Mr Verloc.

Comrade Alexander Ossipon--nicknamed the Doctor, ex-medical student
without a degree; afterwards wandering lecturer to working-men's
associations upon the socialistic aspects of hygiene; author of a popular
quasi-medical study (in the form of a cheap pamphlet seized promptly by
the police) entitled "The Corroding Vices of the Middle Classes"; special
delegate of the more or less mysterious Red Committee, together with Karl
Yundt and Michaelis for the work of literary propaganda--turned upon the
obscure familiar of at least two Embassies that glance of insufferable,
hopelessly dense sufficiency which nothing but the frequentation of
science can give to the dulness of common mortals.