Wilfrid Lambert, the youth with the nose which appeared to impoverish the rest of his face, had also contributed little to the enlargement of the human spirit, but he had the honourable excuse of being a fool.
Lambert would have been called a silly man; Barker, with all his cleverness, might have been called a stupid man.

But mere silliness and stupidity sank into insignificance in the presence of the awful and mysterious treasures of foolishness apparently stored up in the small figure that stood waiting for them outside Cicconani's.

The little man, whose name was Auberon Quin, had an appearance compounded of a baby and an owl.

His round head, round eyes, seemed to have been designed by nature playfully with a pair of compasses.

His flat dark hair and preposterously long frock-coat gave him something of the look of a child's "Noah." When he entered a room of strangers, they mistook him for a small boy, and wanted to take him on their knees, until he spoke, when they perceived that a boy would have been more intelligent.
"I have been waiting quite a long time," said Quin, mildly.