For a moment a phrase tried to take a shape in my mouth and my lips parted like a dumb man's as though there was more struggling upon them than a wisp of startled air.

He talks like that. And Ann talks about him talking like that at the Gatsby project on Althouse.blogspot.com.

He could make a better triangle, square and circle if he tried because I saw that in real life once. A man I met on the beach who kept saying  the word "oh" over and over again out of his perfectly square mouth, and I mean perfectly square. That's what was so surprising about that. His lips started out like a straight line then opened to a square, but then the round sound "O" came out of it, like he was blowing round smoke rings out of a square hole. It was the most astounding thing, and I couldn't even mention it, and I'll never forget that.