mooner

A "mooner," fond of staring into shop windows, or watching the labourers pulling up the pavement to inspect the gas-pipes, or listening stolidly to the dull "pech" of the paviour's rammer on the flags.

Though not an exhibitionist mooner like Rousseau, Jacques offers us his belaboured rump as an image of a brutalised, not loveless but misloved, childhood .