“You shall not be troubled with them, Sir Ethelred,” the Assistant
Commissioner began, with a calm and untroubled assurance. While he was
speaking the hands on the face of the clock behind the great man’s back—a
heavy, glistening affair of massive scrolls in the same dark marble as
the mantelpiece, and with a ghostly, evanescent tick—had moved through
the space of seven minutes. He spoke with a studious fidelity to a
parenthetical manner, into which every little fact—that is, every
detail—fitted with delightful ease. Not a murmur nor even a movement
hinted at interruption. The great Personage might have been the statue
of one of his own princely ancestors stripped of a crusader’s war
harness, and put into an ill-fitting frock coat. The Assistant
Commissioner felt as though he were at liberty to talk for an hour. But
he kept his head, and at the end of the time mentioned above he broke off
with a sudden conclusion, which, reproducing the opening statement,
pleasantly surprised Sir Ethelred by its apparent swiftness and force.
Joseph Conrad, The Secret Agent, 1907
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