![]() Winnie’s mother was a stout, wheezy woman, with a large brown face. He found at home the ease of his body and the peace of his conscience, together with Mrs. Neither his spiritual, nor his mental, nor his physical needs were of the kind to take him much abroad. Verloc carried on his business of a seller of shady wares, exercised his vocation of a protector of society, and cultivated his domestic virtues. The door of the shop was the only means of entrance to the house in which Mr. Verloc, and with a muttered greeting, lifted up the flap at the end of the counter in order to pass into the back parlour, which gave access to a passage and to a steep flight of stairs. ![]() The evening visitors-the men with collars turned up and soft hats rammed down-nodded familiarly to Mrs. 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. Steady eyed like her husband, she preserved an air of unfathomable indifference behind the rampart of the counter. ![]() Winnie Verloc was a young woman with a full bust, in a tight bodice, and with broad hips. Verloc who would appear at the call of the cracked bell. 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. 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. Verloc knew his business, and remained undisturbed by any sort of æsthetic doubt about his appearance. In a commercial transaction of the retail order much depends on the seller’s engaging and amiable aspect. Another man would have felt such an appearance a distinct disadvantage. His eyes were naturally heavy he had an air of having wallowed, fully dressed, all day on an unmade bed. Verloc would issue hastily from the parlour at the back. It clattered and at that signal, through the dusty glass door behind the painted deal counter, Mr. It was hopelessly cracked but of an evening, at the slightest provocation, it clattered behind the customer with impudent virulence. The bell, hung on the door by means of a curved ribbon of steel, was difficult to circumvent. With their hands plunged deep in the side pockets of their coats, they dodged in sideways, one shoulder first, as if afraid to start the bell going. And the legs inside them did not, as a general rule, seem of much account either. Some of that last kind had the collars of their overcoats turned right up to their moustaches, and traces of mud on the bottom of their nether garments, which had the appearance of being much worn and not very valuable. These customers were either very young men, who hung about the window for a time before slipping in suddenly or men of a more mature age, but looking generally as if they were not in funds. The window contained photographs of more or less undressed dancing girls nondescript packages in wrappers like patent medicines closed yellow paper envelopes, very flimsy, and marked two and six in heavy black figures a few numbers of ancient French comic publications hung across a string as if to dry a dingy blue china bowl, a casket of black wood, bottles of marking ink, and rubber stamps a few books, with titles hinting at impropriety a few apparently old copies of obscure newspapers, badly printed, with titles like The Torch, The Gong-rousing titles.2 And the two gas jets inside the panes were always turned low, either for economy’s sake or for the sake of the customers. In the daytime the door remained closed in the evening it stood discreetly but suspiciously ajar. It was one of those grimy brick houses which existed in large quantities before the era of reconstruction dawned upon London.1 The shop was a square box of a place, with the front glazed in small panes. The shop was small, and so was the house. And, moreover, his wife was in charge of his brother-in-law. Verloc cared but little about his ostensible business. It could be done, because there was very little business at any time, and practically none at all before the evening. Verloc, going out in the morning, left his shop nominally in charge of his brother-in-law.
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