You may laugh! P'raps you haven't got daughters--not that I have either, praise glory! But nieces, if the father's a fool, wear you out very little less.
Satire, ho! ho!' The semi-intoxicated uncle of nieces relapsed vindictively into his corner and closed his eyes.

Occasionally Drake would hear a muffled growl, and, looking in that direction, would see one inflamed eye peering from a mountain of rugs.
'Satire!' and a husky voice would address the passengers indiscriminately.

'Satire! and the man's not a day under forty either.' Drake joined in the laugh and lit his pipe.

He was not sensitive to miscomputations of his years, and felt disinclined to provoke further outbursts of family confidences.
Instead, he pursued his acquaintance with _A Man of Influence_, realising now that he must take him seriously and regard him stamped with Mallinson's approval, a dominating being.

He found the task difficult.
The character insisted upon reminding him of the nursery-maid's ideal, the dandified breaker of hearts and bender of wills; an analytical hero too, who traced the sentence through the thought to the emotion, which originally prompted it; whence his success and influence.