He recast them in his thoughts, turning this sentence more deftly, whittling that repartee to a finer point.

The process consoled him for Drake's misreckoning of his purpose in the matter of _A Man of Influence_, since it pointed to a certain lack of delicacy, say at once to crassness in the man's intellect.
Mallinson began immediately to imagine himself in Drake's position, the candidate for whom brass bands played, and hats went spinning into the air.

And it needed no conscious effort for one so agile in egotistical leaps to spring thence to the fancy that Drake was a kind of vicarious substitute for himself, doing his work, too, not without blemishes.
Ten days before the polling-day Fielding ran down from town, and attended a meeting at the Town Hall, at which both Drake and Mallinson were to speak.

He sat on the platform by Clarice's side and paid some attention to her manner during the evening.

He noticed the colour mount in her cheeks and her eyes kindle, as on first entering the room she looked down upon the crowded floor.