Julian Maldon in particular was self-conscious. He hated intensely
to be self-conscious, and his feeling towards every witness of his
self-consciousness partook always of the homicidal. Were it not
that civilization has the means to protect itself, Julian might have
murdered defenceless aged ladies and innocent young girls for the
simple offence of having seen him blush.

He was a perfect specimen of a throw-back to original ancestry. He had
been born in London, of an American mother, and had spent the greater
part of his life in London. Yet London and his mother seemed to
count for absolutely nothing at all in his composition. At the age of
seventeen his soul, quitting the exile of London, had come to the
Five Towns with a sigh of relief as if at the assuagement of a long
nostalgia, and had dropped into the district as into a socket. In
three months he was more indigenous than a native. Any experienced
observer who now chanced at a week-end to see him board the Manchester
express at Euston would have been able to predict from his appearance
that he would leave the train at Knype. He was an undersized man, with
a combative and suspicious face. He regarded the world with crafty
pugnacity from beneath frowning eyebrows. His expression said: "Woe
betide the being who tries to get the better of me!" His expression
said: "Keep off!" His expression said: "I am that I am. Take me
or leave me, but preferably leave me. I loathe fuss, pretence,
flourishes--any and every form of damned nonsense."

He had an excellent heart, but his attitude towards it was the
attitude of his great-grandmother towards her front parlour--he used
it as little as possible, and kept it locked up like a shame. In
brief, he was more than a bit of a boor. And boorishness being his
chief fault, he was quite naturally proud of it, counted it for