He always disputes and often snubs what one says; partly, I am sure, from a love of truth--a genuine desire to keep himself and everybody else from talking in an unreal way, and from repeating common ideas without thinking them out at first hand; and partly, too, from what Keziah calls the "contradictiousness" of his temper.

He was in the room when Jack and I were talking, but he was not talking with us.

He was reading for his examination.
All the Arkwrights can work through noise and in company, having considerable powers of mental abstraction.

I think they even sometimes combine attention to their own work with an occasional skimming of the topics current in the room as well.
Some outlying feeler of Clement's brain caught my remark and Jack's reply.
"My dear Margery," said he, "you are at heart one of the most unaffected people I know.

Pray be equally genuine with your head, and do not encourage Jack in his slipshod habits of thought and conversation by----" "Slipshod!" interrupted Jack, holding his left arm out at full length before him, the hand of which was shod with a fishing-boot.