She gave him a highly-coloured account of her evening's service as lady-in-waiting, which he matched by that of his own trials as gentleman-usher to the President, who, it seemed, had clung desperately to his old enemy in the absence of any other rock to clutch at.
Ratcliffe looked the character of Prime Minister sufficiently well at this moment.

He would have held his own, at a pinch, in any Court, not merely in Europe but in India or China, where dignity is still expected of gentlemen.
Excepting for a certain coarse and animal expression about the mouth, and an indefinable coldness in the eye, he was a handsome man and still in his prime.

Every one remarked how much he was improved since entering the Cabinet.

He had dropped his senatorial manner.

His clothes were no longer congressional, but those of a respectable man, neat and decent.
His shirts no longer protruded in the wrong places, nor were his shirt-collars frayed or soiled.