old Baron who would have had the wicked folly of getting me
to call on him at eleven in the morning. There are two or three in this town
that, if they had seen me going in, would have made no bones about knocking me
on the head sooner or later. It was a silly, murderous trick to expose for
nothing a man - like me.«
    Mr. Verloc, turning on the tap above the sink, poured three glasses of
water, one after another, down his throat to quench the fires of his
indignation. Mr. Vladimir's conduct was like a hot brand which set his internal
economy in a blaze. He could not get over the disloyalty of it. This man, who
would not work at the usual hard tasks which society sets to its humbler
members, had exercised his secret industry with an indefatigable devotion. There
was in Mr. Verloc a fund of loyalty. He had been loyal to his employers, to the
cause of social stability - and to his affections, too - as became apparent
when, after standing the tumbler in the sink, he turned about, saying:
    »If I hadn't thought of you I would have taken the bullying brute by the
throat and rammed his head into the fireplace. I'd have been more than a match
for that pink-faced, smooth-shaved -«
    Mr. Verloc neglected to finish the sentence, as if there could be no doubt
of the terminal word. For the first time in his life he was taking that
incurious woman into his confidence. The singularity of the event, the force and
importance of the personal feelings aroused in the course of this confession,
drove Stevie's fate clean out of Mr. Verloc's mind. The boy's stuttering
existence of fears and indignations, together with the violence of his end, had
passed out of Mr. Verloc's mental sight for a time. For that reason, when he
looked up he was startled by the inappropriate character of his wife's stare. It
was not a wild stare, and it was not inattentive, but its attention was peculiar
and not satisfactory, inasmuch that it seemed concentrated upon some point
beyond Mr. Verloc's person. The impression was so strong that Mr. Verloc glanced
over his shoulder. There was nothing behind him: there was just the whitewashed
wall. The excellent husband of Winnie Verloc saw no writing on the wall. He
turned to his wife again, repeating, with some emphasis:
    »I would have taken him by the throat. As true as