Paul Gane is an agent for MI6.
He is a hard drinker and a lady's man, at least that is what Gane likes to think. Certainly the drinking part is true but unlike the stereotypical boozing spy, Gane suffers realistic nausea, passing out, and intense hangovers. This never suffices to slow him down but it does cause understandable trouble in his professional life.
On the matter of the ladies, the best that can be said about this 29-year-old man is that Gane likes sex. He doesn't get as much as he would like or as much as he would brag about, largely because he is a crude and forgettable bore. In one startling passage, his adolescent brain goads him into reaching up the back of a skirt of a secretary who was bending over to pick up something. When the loutish invasion results in the girl getting upset enough to cry, he is truly stunned and confused. This is mentioned because his loutish behavior moves far beyond the ladies and enters his professional life as well just as the drinking does. The hardly makes him the ideal employee.
Paul Gane has little to endear him to anyone. That includes his employers who eventually learn that he is more trouble than he is worth and get rid of him. Now out of a job and still a louse, his prospects are even less and he turns to larceny as a way out. Far be it for Gane to think of changing his ways. It is always the other guy who is wronging him.
As a spy, Gane was never very good, except in his own mind; in that domain he sees himself every bit as good as he is a lover. As a crook, he is worse. As a patsy and a jerk, he is quite successful.