Thyrza, who had declined to have anything to drink, shrank into as little space as possible; she was nervous and self-reproachful, yet the singing and the uproar gave her a certain pleasure.

There was nothing in the talk around her and the songs that were sung that made it a shame for her to be present.
Plebeian good-humour does not often degenerate into brutality at meetings of this kind until a late hour of the evening.

The girls who sat with glasses of beer before them, and carried on primitive flirtations with their neighbours, were honest wage-earners of factory and workshop, well able to make themselves respected.

If they lacked refinement, natural or acquired, it was not their fault; toil was behind them and before, the hours of rest were few, suffering and lack of bread might at any moment come upon them.

They had all thrown their hard-earned pence into the soup-plate gladly and kindly; now they enjoyed themselves.
The chairman excited enthusiasm by announcement of a song by Mr.Sam Coppock--known to the company as 'Chaffy Sem.' Sam was a young man who clearly had no small opinion of himself; he wore a bright-blue necktie, and had a geranium flower in his button-hole; his hair was cut as short as scissors could make it, and as he stood regarding the assembly he twisted the ends of a scarcely visible moustache.