LEXY (stung). I try to follow his example, not to imitate him.

PROSERPINE (coming at him again on her way back to her work).
Yes, you do: you IMITATE him. Why do you tuck your umbrella under
your left arm instead of carrying it in your hand like anyone
else? Why do you walk with your chin stuck out before you,
hurrying along with that eager look in your eyes--you, who never
get up before half past nine in the morning? Why do you say
"knoaledge" in church, though you always say "knolledge" in
private conversation! Bah! do you think I don't know? (She goes
back to the typewriter.) Here, come and set about your work:
we've wasted enough time for one morning. Here's a copy of the
diary for to-day. (She hands him a memorandum.)

LEXY (deeply offended). Thank you. (He takes it and stands at the
table with his back to her, reading it. She begins to transcribe
her shorthand notes on the typewriter without troubling herself
about his feelings. Mr. Burgess enters unannounced. He is a man
of sixty, made coarse and sordid by the compulsory selfishness of
petty commerce, and later on softened into sluggish bumptiousness
by overfeeding and commercial success. A vulgar, ignorant,
guzzling man, offensive and contemptuous to people whose labor is
cheap, respectful to wealth and rank, and quite sincere and
without rancour or envy in both attitudes. Finding him without
talent, the world has offered him no decently paid work except
ignoble work, and he has become in consequence, somewhat hoggish.
But he has no suspicion of this himself, and honestly regards his
commercial prosperity as the inevitable and socially wholesome
triumph of the ability, industry, shrewdness and experience in
business of a man who in private is easygoing, affectionate and