I tell you what, Bird: you ought to stand for the County Council." But before Shelton had replied they reached the theatre, and their energies were spent in sidling to their stalls.

He had time to pass his neighbours in review before the play began.

Seated next to him was a lady with large healthy shoulders, displayed with splendid liberality; beyond her a husband, red-cheeked, with drooping, yellow-grey moustache and a bald head; beyond him again two men whom he had known at Eton.
One of them had a clean-shaved face, dark hair, and a weather-tanned complexion; his small mouth with its upper lip pushed out above the lower, his eyelids a little drooped over his watchful eyes, gave him a satirical and resolute expression.

"I've got hold of your tail, old fellow," he seemed to say, as though he were always busy with the catching of some kind of fox.

The other's goggling eyes rested on Shelton with a chaffing smile; his thick, sleek hair, brushed with water and parted in the middle, his neat moustache and admirable waistcoat, suggested the sort of dandyism that despises women.