On the ivory handles of its doors, on its soft yellow leather upholstery, on its cedar woodwork, on its patent blind apparatus, on its silver fittings, on its lamps, on its footstools, on its silken arm-slings--not the minutest trace of usage! Mr.Oxford's car seemed to show that Mr.Oxford never used a car twice, purchasing a new car every morning, like stockbrokers their silk hats, or the Duke of Selsea his trousers.

There was a table in the 'body' for writing, and pockets up and down devised to hold documents, also two arm-chairs, and a suspended contrivance which showed the hour, the temperature, and the fluctuations of the barometer; there was also a speaking-tube.

One felt that if the machine had been connected by wireless telegraphy with the Stock Exchange, the leading studios and the Houses of Parliament, and if a little restaurant had been constructed in the rear, Mr.Oxford might never have been under the necessity of leaving the car; that he might have passed all his days in it from morn to latest eve.
The perfection of the machine and of Mr.Oxford's attire and complexion caused Priam to look rather shabby.

Indeed, he was rather shabby.
Shabbiness had slightly overtaken him in Putney.

Once he had been a dandy; but that was in the lamented Leek's time.