 Jenkins 's descriptions of Widmerpool 's appearance are unflattering ; at school he is painted as " heavily built , [ with ] thick lips and metal @-@ rimmed spectacles giving his face as usual an aggrieved expression ... [ as if ] he suspected people of trying to worm out of him important information ... " A few years later , he is wearing more fashionable spectacles but Jenkins notes that he still has a curiously fishlike ( " <unk> " ) countenance . He has a propensity to put on weight ; although barely 30 , Widmerpool appears to Jenkins as portly and middle @-@ aged . At the outbreak of war in 1939 , in an badly cut army uniform , he resembles a music @-@ hall burlesque of a military officer or else " a railway official of some obscure country " . After the war as an MP , his demeanour and shape are " demanding of treatment by political cartoonists " . In 1958 , meeting Widmerpool ( then in his mid @-@ fifties ) after some years , Jenkins is shocked by his elderly appearance . His clothes are ill @-@ fitting through weight loss , giving him the look of a scarecrow ; his grey hair is sparse and his facial flesh hangs in pouches . The final glimpse of Widmerpool , in his cult milieu , reveals him as a physical wreck , looking aged , desperate and worn out . 
