Three Score & Ten

He was thirty-four, and had a tall, strong, beefy, ungainly figure. He had a fresh, red complexion and a small moustache. His eyes were big and blue and sad and slightly bloodshot with beer and smoke. He looked as though he had been to an inferior public school and would be pleased to sell you a second-hand car. Just as some people look unmistakably ‘horsey’, bear the stamp of Newmarket, he bore the stamp of Great Portland Street. He made you think of road houses, and there are thousands of his sort frequenting the saloon bars of public houses all over England. His full mouth was weak, however, rather than cruel. His name was George Harvey Bone.

Patrick Hamilton, Hangover Square

His own reflection gave little dissatisfaction. The clear, clean skin; the clear, clean teeth; the firm clean-shaven features; the nous, efficiency, and yet frankness of his face; the dark, well-kept hair; the dark brown eyes, set rather far back – all these collectively were as bracing to a remorseful spirit as you could wish. He was, however, not an Englishman. His American and Irish parentage gleamed from him – most particularly his American. His father had been (and it was his father’s proudest boast) an American “cop”. But he had never seen his father, and his mother had died in London when he was sixteen and at sea. He had spent his early life at sea, and England was the country of his adoption. He spoke with a cockney accent. He was now twenty-five, but looked any age between twenty and thirty. He was an acquisition to “The Midnight Bell,” and a favourite everywhere.

Patrick Hamilton, Twenty Thousand Streets UnderThe Sky