What all the election's about.

Scientific sort of stuff.

'Asn't no one ever told you ?" He thought prison had made his brother a fearful duffer not to know that.
They made wide shots at each other by way of question and answer.
Between these scraps of talk were intervals of window-gazing.

At first the man's interest in things was vague and general.

His imagination had been busy with what old so-and-so would say, how so-and-so would look, how he would say to all and sundry certain things that would present his "putting away" in a mitigated light.