I asked him for the justicoat which you had given me when I came down here and I had left with him to take care of, as with the best of my friends.

[S]he flaps distractedly past us in a splather of muddy spume.

outward decency […] is the Harbinger to provide the lodging for inward holinesse

He clearly had some of the spunk from the war left in him, for Tim always found the man addressing him as “flea bag,” “scum” or “maggot.”