In five years he had fought his way down the Road, his line of march dotted with disabled rivals.
Old Paasch, the German, had been his first victim.

Bewildered and protesting, he had succumbed to Jonah's novel methods of attack as a savage goes down under the fire of machine-guns.

His shop was closed years ago, and he lived in a stuffy room, smelling vilely of tobacco-smoke, where he taught the violin to hazardous pupils for little more than a crust.

He always spoke of Jonah with a vague terror in his blue eyes, convinced that he had once employed Satan as an errand-boy.
People were surprised to find that Jonah meant to live in the rooms over the new shop, when he could well afford to take a private house in the suburbs.

It was said he treated his wife like dirt; that they lived like cat and dog; that he grudged her bare living and clothing.
Jonah set his lips grimly on a hint of these rumours.
Three years ago he had planted Ada in a house of her own, and had gone home daily to rooms choked with dirt, for with years of ease she had grown more slovenly.