"This is a loan, not a gift," he murmured.
I returned a quick, angry look.
"I don't want your pin."
"No offence meant," he deprecated, "and you must wear it" (for I was putting it aside) "Mr. Mackworth and I both want you to look your best when you meet Miss Martin at dinner to-night".... I angrily almost decided to take his pin with me when I left, just to fulfill his pre-supposition.
"No, that's not the place to stick it ... let me show you ... not in the body of the tie, but further down," and he deftly placed the pin in the right spot. Then he stepped back like an artist who is proud of having made a good job of bad materials....
"You look almost like a gentleman."
I was about to lick into Merton and lend him a sample of a few strong objurgations of road and jail, when I saw myself in the glass. I stood transfixed. He had not meant to be ironic. The transformation was startling....
"If you would only keep yourself tidy all the time that way!... it's easy."
"Not for me ... everything material that I touch seems to fall apart.... I lose my shirts inexplicably ... my socks ... holes appear overnight in my clothes. Books are the only things I can keep. I am always cluttered up with them."
"Appearances mean everything ... then, if you have the rest, the goods to deliver, there is no place a man might not go nor attain."