“Dark hair fell in a sweep over his forehead. He looked like a man who would write vers libre, as indeed he did.”

“He was a Frenchman, a melancholy-looking man. His aspect was that of one who has been looking for the leak in a gas pipe with a lighted candle.”

“The man was goggling. His entire map was suffused with a rich blush. He looked like the Soul's Awakening done in pink.”

“He sat looking at it with his eyes protruding in the manner popularized by snails, looking like something stuffed by a taxidermist who had learned his job from a correspondence course and had only got as far as lesson three.”

“He was a tubby little chap who looked as if he had been poured into his clothes and forgotten to say 'when'!”

“She looked away. Her attitude seemed to suggest that she had finished with him, and would be obliged if somebody would come and sweep him up.”

“A melancholy-looking man, he had the appearance of one who has searched for the leak in life's gas-pipe with a lighted candle.”