Thereupon the Germanophobe interrupted me with wrathful remonstrances about our lies and denials

In keeping with the orchidaceous theme of the wedding, the decorator draped the walls with lavenders and pinks.

I looked up at him as he turned his back and a few minutes later, the foreman brought me up and reluctantly gave me my cards as the boss, the horrid face of capital, had sacked me for not wearing protective boots. Later I fancied, when I became an architect, and could choose which contractors to invite on tender lists, I would invent a scene in which he would ask me why his firm had always been excluded. He would plead his case, and I, having rehearsed the part, would appear to him like Dickens’s Spirit of Christmas Past had to Scrooge, and sent him packing.

I had been glad if 'twere us but not them.