Both classes seek to avoid ridicule, and to adapt themselves to a standard of respectability.

If Chilvers goes in for the newest apologetics, he is bound to be enormously successful.

The man has brains, and really there are so few such men who still care to go into the Church.' There was a murmur of laughing approval.

The speaker had worked himself into eloquent nervousness; he leaned forward with his hands straining together, and the muscles of his face quivering.
'And isn't it surprising,' said Marcella, 'in how short a time this apologetic attitude has become necessary ?' Peak flashed a triumphant look at her.
'I often rejoice to think of it!' he cried.

'How magnificent it is that so many of the solemn jackasses who brayed against Darwin from ten to twenty years ago should live to be regarded as beneath contempt! I say it earnestly: this thought is one of the things that make life tolerable to me!' 'You have need of charity, friend Peak,' interposed Earwaker.