Buckland Warricombe was rather a careless talker, but it was the carelessness of a man who had never needed to reflect on such a matter, the refinement of whose enunciation was assured to him from the nursery.

That now was a thing to be aimed at.

Preciseness must be avoided, for in a young man it seemed to argue conscious effort: a loose sentence now and then, a colloquialism substituted for the more grammatical phrase.
Heaven be thanked that he was unconcerned on the point of garb! Inferiority in that respect would have been fatal to his ease.

His clothes were not too new, and in quality were such as he had the habit of wearing.

The Warricombes must have immediately detected any pretentiousness, were it but in a necktie; that would impress them more unfavourably than signs of poverty.