Lanfierre had undoubtedly been affected by his job.
Sitting behind the wheel of the orange car, he watched Humphrey Fownes approach with a distinct feeling of admiration, although it was an odd, objective kind of admiration, clinical in nature. It was similar to that of a pathologist observing for the first time a new and particularly virulent strain of pneumococcus under his microscope.
Lanfierre's job was to ferret out aberration. It couldn't be tolerated within the confines of a dome. Conformity had become more than a social force; it was a physical necessity. And, after years of working at it, Lanfierre had become an admirer of eccentricity. He came to see that genuine quirks were rare and, as time went on, due partly to his own small efforts, rarer.
Fownes was a masterpiece of queerness. He was utterly inexplicable. Lanfierre was almost proud of Humphrey Fownes.
"Sometimes his house shakes," Lanfierre said.
"House shakes," Lieutenant MacBride wrote in his notebook. Then he stopped and frowned. He reread what he'd just written.
"You heard right. The house shakes," Lanfierre said, savoring it.
MacBride looked at the Fownes house through the magnifying glass of the windshield. "Like from ... side to side?" he asked in a somewhat patronizing tone of voice.
"And up and down."
MacBride returned the notebook to the breast pocket of his orange uniform. "Go on," he said, amused. "It sounds interesting." He tossed the dossier carelessly on the back seat.