He moved and did everything in jerky gestures, always incomplete; he never quite stretched out his arm, nor quite put out his legs; nor made any broad and definite movements.

His ideas seemed to be like his actions; he suggested them, promised them, sketched them, hinted at them, but never fully uttered them.
And, indeed, his great end in life seemed to be the concoction of sirups and liqueurs.

"A good sirup or a good liqueur is enough to make a fortune," he would often say.
He had compounded hundreds of these sweet mixtures without ever succeeding in floating one of them.

Pierre declared that Marowsko always reminded him of Marat.
Two little glasses were fetched out of the back shop and placed on the mixing-board.

Then the two men scrutinized the colour of the fluid by holding it up to the gas.
"A fine ruby," Pierre declared.
"Isn't it ?" Marowsko's old parrot-face beamed with satisfaction.
The doctor tasted, smacked his lips, meditated, tasted again, meditated again, and spoke: "Very good--capital; and quite new in flavour.