Quotation from: The Secret Agent

Written by: Joseph Conrad

His wife might have fallen asleep already. He could not tell. As a
matter of fact, Mrs Verloc had heard him. Her eyes remained very wide
open, and she lay very still, confirmed in her instinctive conviction
that things don't bear looking into very much. And yet it was nothing
very unusual for Mr Verloc to take such a trip. He renewed his stock
from Paris and Brussels. Often he went over to make his purchases
personally. A little select connection of amateurs was forming around
the shop in Brett Street, a secret connection eminently proper for any
business undertaken by Mr Verloc, who, by a mystic accord of temperament
and necessity, had been set apart to be a secret agent all his life.