Edgar Wallace

“ A tall, angular man with large, bony hands, a big, bulging forehead, two small, deep-set eyes which even his immense and powerful spectacles did not magnify, Gerald van Roon seemed the least suitable of companions for a man of Jimmy's tastes. He was exact, precise, orderly, had no human interests and absolutely no tastes in common with his happy-go-lucky cousin. ”

“ At some period of the seventeenth century when Greenwich and Blackheath were fashionable rendezvous for the elite and fashion of Elizabeth's court, and when the stately palace by the river saw Raleigh and Leicester, and the grand gentlemen and dames of society strolling on the grassy slopes of the Royal Park, a Major Blake had acquired the property and had erected a pleasure house for himself and his friends. ”

“ The man's high principles, his almost fanatical passion for the truth which is, after all, the basic layer of the scientific mind, his childlike innocence in all worldly matters, his contempt for commerce and the rewards which commercial success brings, his extraordinary idealism—all these were very endearing qualities, which appealed strongly to the younger man.
“You're a funny devil,” said Jimmy throwing his napkin in a heap on the table. Gerald van Roon rolled his precisely and fitted the napkin ring exactly over the center of the roll. ”