ou?" 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.

"That's what he may be called scientifically. Very good type too,
altogether, of that sort of degenerate. It's enough to glance at the
lobes of his ears. If you read Lombroso--"

Mr Verloc, moody and spread largely on the sofa, continued to look down
the row of his waistcoat buttons; but his cheeks became tinged by a faint
blush. Of late even the merest derivative of the word science (a term in
itself inoffensive and of indefinite meaning) had the curious power of
evoking a definitely offensive mental vision of Mr Vladimir, in his body
as he lived, with an almost supernatural clearness. And this phenomenon,
deserving justly to be classed amongst the marvels of science, induced in
Mr Verloc an emotional state of dread and exasperation tending to express
itself in violent swearing. But he said nothing. It was Karl Yundt who
was heard, implacable to his last breath.

"Lombroso is an ass."

Comrade Ossipon met the shock of this blasphemy by an awful, vacant
stare. And the other, his extinguished eyes without gleams blackening
the deep shadows under the great, bony forehead, mumbled, catching the
tip of his tongue between his lips at every second word as though he were
chewing it angrily:

"Did you ever see such an idiot? For him the criminal is the prisoner.
Simple, is it not? What about those who shut him up there--forced him in
there? Exactly. Forced him in there. And what is crime? Does he know
that, this imbecile who has made his way in this world of gorged fools by
looking at the ears and teeth of a lot of poor, luckless devils? Teeth
and ears mark the criminal? Do they? And what about the law that marks
him still better--the pretty branding instrument invented by the overfed
to protect themse