"No, I can't imagine.

It's possible that he never thought of that at all.

It sounds an extravagant way of putting it, Sir Ethelred, but his state of dismay suggested to me an impulsive man who, after committing suicide with the notion that it would end all his troubles, had discovered that it did nothing of the kind." The Assistant Commissioner gave this definition in an apologetic voice.
But in truth there is a sort of lucidity proper to extravagant language, and the great man was not offended.

A slight jerky movement of the big body half lost in the gloom of the green silk shades, of the big head leaning on the big hand, accompanied an intermittent stifled but powerful sound.

The great man had laughed.
"What have you done with him ?" The Assistant Commissioner answered very readily: "As he seemed very anxious to get back to his wife in the shop I let him go, Sir Ethelred." "You did?
But the fellow will disappear." "Pardon me.