Herman Cyril McNeile

“ It strikes me you're a great deal too occupied about other people, and you don't pay sufficient attention to yourself. You've got to live your own life--not the man's next door. And you'll do most good by living that life, as you want to live it. If you really want to reform other people--well go and do it, and get a thick ear. ”

“ All the wonderful schemes of reform are for the glory of the schemer first, with the happy recipients amongst the also rans." She paused a moment, and a sudden tender look came into her eyes. "Of course there are exceptions. There's a boy I know--he's a cousin of mine--with weak lungs. Rejected for the Army three times as totally unfit. For the last four years he's been living in a slum off Whitechapel and the people there love him. ”

“ And if those of her friends who knew Joan Devereux well had seen the look in her eyes as she turned to her three Canadians, they would have hazarded a guess that there was trouble brewing. They would further have hazarded a second guess as to the form it was likely to take. And both guesses would have been right. A young man, remarked Joan to herself, who would be all the better for a fall; a young man who seemed very much too sure of himself. Joan Devereux was quite capable of dealing with such cases as they deserved, and she was a young woman of much experience. ”

“ But if you don't want to, there's no earthly use trying to pretend you do; you're merely a hypocrite. There's no good telling me that everybody can be lumped into classes and catered for like so many machines. ”

“ She stood looking down at him. . . . "Are you going to walk back with me, or to resume your study of rodents?"
Vane slipped the book in his pocket. "I'm afraid," he remarked, "that I should not be able to bring that undivided attention to bear on the subject which is so essential for my education. Besides--perhaps you'll have a few minutes to spare after you have dealt with the Colonials. . . ." He parted the branches for her.
"My dear man," she retorted, "You've had far more than your fair official share already. . . ." She scrambled on to the path and Vane fell into step beside her. ”

“ Of course they don't; they're just posing. They pretend it's awful and horrible to dance and play the fool; and all the while their teeth are chattering with envy and malice. . . ."
"We seem," remarked Vane, taking advantage of a temporary lull in the flood, "to have arrived at rather a personal discussion."
"Of course we have," she took him up. "Isn't it I--I--I everywhere? Only a lot of people aren't sufficiently truthful to admit it. It's Number One first all the way through, right from the people up at the top down to the poor brutes in the slums. ”

“ But I'm happy--and I'm sincere. I do the most awful things at times- because I like doing them. I should loathe to be a nurse, and the W.A.A.C. uniform makes me look a fright. I may not realise the horrors over the water ”