People with such a taste for activity had to have some line.

I could feel how even in a dull house they could have been counted on for the joy of life.

At present something had happened--it didn't matter what, their little income had grown less, it had grown least--and they had to do something for pocket-money.

Their friends could like them, I made out, without liking to support them.

There was something about them that represented credit--their clothes, their manners, their type; but if credit is a large empty pocket in which an occasional chink reverberates, the chink at least must be audible.