To the other's notion, he seemed the
personification of business--without an ounce of distracting
superfluous flesh upon his wiry, tough little frame,
without a trace of unnecessary politeness, or humour,
or sensibility of any sort. He was the machine perfected
and fined down to absolute essentials. He could understand
a joke if it was useful to him to do so. He could drink,
and even smoke cigarettes, with a natural air, if these
exercises seemed properly to belong to the task he had
in hand. Thorpe did not conceive him doing anything
for the mere human reason that he liked to do it.
There was more than a touch of what the rustic calls "ginger"
in his hair and closely-cropped, pointed beard, and he had
the complementary florid skin. His eyes--notably direct,
confident eyes--were of a grey which had in it more brown
than blue. He wore a black frock-coat, buttoned close,
and his linen produced the effect of a conspicuous whiteness.
He turned as the clerk left the room, and let his serious,
thin lips relax for an instant as a deferred greeting.
"Well?" he asked, impassively.
"Have you got a quarter-of-an-hour?" asked Thorpe in turn.
"I want a talk with you."
For answer, Semple left the room. Returning after a minute
or two, he remarked, "Go ahead till we're stopped,"
and seated himself on the corner of the desk with the light
inconsequence of a bird on a twig.
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