"Even in such a concourse one would think we couldn't fail to see the proprietor." "Several hundred proprietors today," Eugene suggested.
"No; they're only proprietors of the university," said George's uncle.
"We're looking for the proprietor of the universe." "There he is!" cried Isabel fondly, not minding this satire at all.

"And doesn't he look it!" Her escorts were still laughing at her when they joined the proprietor of the universe and his pretty friend, and though both Amberson and Eugene declined to explain the cause of their mirth, even upon Lucy's urgent request, the portents of the day were amiable, and the five made a happy party--that is to say, four of them made a happy audience for the fifth, and the mood of this fifth was gracious and cheerful.
George took no conspicuous part in either the academic or the social celebrations of his class; he seemed to regard both sets of exercises with a tolerant amusement, his own "crowd" "not going in much for either of those sorts of things," as he explained to Lucy.

What his crowd had gone in for remained ambiguous; some negligent testimony indicating that, except for an astonishing reliability which they all seemed to have attained in matters relating to musical comedy, they had not gone in for anything.

Certainly the question one of them put to Lucy, in response to investigations of hers, seemed to point that way: "Don't you think," he said, "really, don't you think that being things is rather better than doing things ?" He said "rahthuh bettuh" for "rather better," and seemed to do it deliberately, with perfect knowledge of what he was doing.

Later, Lucy mocked him to George, and George refused to smile: he somewhat inclined to such pronunciations, himself.