'Troubled', the headmaster had said, presumably teacherese for the same thing.

The farther from the Senator's office, the darker and older the furniture, the freer fly four-letter oaths, the higher the heaps of unfiled and unattended papers culminating in a frenzy of pulp in the press section […]

...elegant, skaterly, bubble-chamber spirals of hair.

Evening chatting to Mr Vang, who is a chronophage, though an interesting one. Here one cannot turn a cold shoulder, as Goethe did, because personal relationships are probably more important than material achievements.