Some said Jan was a fool, some said he was a bear.

Lady Verner did not accord him any great amount of favour herself.

She had tried to make Jan what she called a gentleman, to beat into him suavity, gracefulness, tact, gloss of speech and bearing, something between a Lord Chesterfield and a Sir Roger de Coverley; and she had been obliged lo give it up as a hopeless job.

Jan was utterly irreclaimable: Nature had made him plain and straightforward, and so he remained.

But there was many a one that the world would bow down to as a model, whose intrinsic worth was poor compared to unoffending Jan's.