This is straight from the noontime soaps. Harry Clavering, the sometimes sheep-like "hero" of _The Claverings_, rises to challenge his cousin Sir Hugh Clavering, standing toe-to-toe in a hostile verbal encounter, and the younger man (Harry) defies his banishment from his cousin's house. There is some talk of horsewhipping, and Harry walks out, with a cautious look over his shoulder. No violence. We're English (which sometimes helps). But it is soap opera. _The Claverings_ is basically about Harry Clavering and the two women he loves. He proposes to Julia Brabazon and is refused; she marries a wealthy nobleman; Harry falls in love with Florence Burton, the daughter of a hard-working civil engineer; Julia becomes a wealthy widow and reappears. What will Harry do? It's not so simple. Florence and her family are not to be discounted. Her brother Theodore, committed to building railways and digging tunnels, speaks his piece in Chapter XXVI, "The Man who dusted his Boots with his Handkerchief." (Remember that Mr. Puddicombe, arbiter of proper behavior to his friend Dr. Wortle in _Dr. Wortle's School_, advised his friend, "When I am taking a walk through the fields and get one of my feet deeper than usual into the mud, I always endeavour to bear it as well as I may before the eyes of those who meet me rather than make futile efforts to get rid of the dirt and look as though nothing had happened. The dirt, when it is rubbed and smudged and scraped, is more palpably dirt than the honest mud.") One of the great questions that arose in the Victorian world was how to identify a gentleman, and although Trollope doesn't spell it out in so many words, it may be taken from this description, and from the drawings of this scene in two different editions, that dusting one's boots is a cardinal sign that one is not a gentleman. But, gentleman or not, Theodore Burton is one of the two in the story who prove themselves to be men of worth. When Harry is dithering about which woman he will marry (both Lady Ongar and Florence Burton appear willing to accept him), Theodore Burton, who has employed Harry in the engineering office, writes him a letter acknowledging Harry's absence from the office and urging him to come for an interview. After the formalities, Burton comes directly to the point: "Come, Harry, let me tell you all at once like an honest man. I hate subterfuges and secrets. A report has reached the old people at home--not Florence, mind--that you are untrue to Florence, and are passing your time with that lady who is the sister of your cousin's wife." He goes on to urge him to return to Florence and to the Burton family fold. "And this from the man who had dusted his boots with his pocket handkerchief, and whom Harry had regarded as being on that account hardly fit to be his friend!"