erstwhile-ferocious

Updated: May 23, 2025

The F.I.A.T. rumbles off, with the distinguished one's backward-glaring head poked out a yard more or less and that distinguished face so completely surrendered to mystification as to cause a large laugh on my part. "You are hungry?" It was the erstwhile-ferocious speaking. A criminal, I remembered, is somebody against whom everything he says and does is very cleverly made use of.

E. E. (Edward Estlin) Cummings - The Enormous Room