He represented the solid element in British Labour politics, and it was well known that he had refused a seat in the Cabinet in order to preserve an absolute independence.

He had a remarkable gift of taciturnity, which in a man of his class made for strength, and it was concerning him that the Prime Minister had made his famous epigram, that Furley was the Labour man whom he feared the most and dreaded the least.
Julian Orden, with an exterior more promising in many respects than that of his friend, could boast of no similar distinctions.

He was the youngest son of a particularly fatuous peer resident in the neighbourhood, had started life as a barrister, in which profession he had attained a moderate success, had enjoyed a brief but not inglorious spell of soldiering, from which he had retired slightly lamed for life, and had filled up the intervening period in the harmless occupation of censoring.

His friendship with Furley appeared on the surface too singular to be anything else but accidental.

Probably no one save the two men themselves understood it, and they both possessed the gift of silence.
"What's all this peace talk mean ?" Julian Orden asked, fingering the stem of his wineglass.
"Who knows ?" Furley grunted.