The company accountant - What's striking about his appearance and behavior? Do we detect any irony in Marlow's description of this personage?

Marlow is impressed by the accountant's impeccable neatness in such an inhospitable world,

"I saw a high starched collar, white cuffs, a light alpaca jacket, snowy trousers, a clean necktie, and varnished boots. No hat. Hair parted, brushed, oiled, under a green-lined parasol held in a big white hand. He was amazing, and had a penholder behind his ear."

There is a sense of irony however as Marlow learns that his neatness is the result or rather at the expense of "training" his slave/washerwoman to do his laundry. His clothes become a symbol of barbarity that merely looks like civility.