Those wretched little girls-- The extent to which he was disturbed proves that he was already agog.
Insolent he was and inexperienced, but sure enough the cities which the elderly of the race have built upon the skyline showed like brick suburbs, barracks, and places of discipline against a red and yellow flame.

He was impressionable; but the word is contradicted by the composure with which he hollowed his hand to screen a match.

He was a young man of substance.
Anyhow, whether undergraduate or shop boy, man or woman, it must come as a shock about the age of twenty--the world of the elderly--thrown up in such black outline upon what we are; upon the reality; the moors and Byron; the sea and the lighthouse; the sheep's jaw with the yellow teeth in it; upon the obstinate irrepressible conviction which makes youth so intolerably disagreeable--"I am what I am, and intend to be it," for which there will be no form in the world unless Jacob makes one for himself.

The Plumers will try to prevent him from making it.

Wells and Shaw and the serious sixpenny weeklies will sit on its head.