He considered himself a genius whom it was the duty of the country to support, and he sponged on his wretched relatives and anyone who would lend him money.
He was always babbling about his sins, and pretty squalid they were.

I should like to have flung him among a few good old-fashioned full-blooded sinners of my acquaintance; they would have scared him considerably.

He told me that he sought 'reality' and 'life' and 'truth', but it was hard to see how he could know much about them, for he spent half the day in bed smoking cheap cigarettes, and the rest sunning himself in the admiration of half-witted girls.

The creature was tuberculous in mind and body, and the only novel of his I read, pretty well turned my stomach.

Mr Aronson's strong point was jokes about the war.