it 's as if ' - sable basilisk furrowed his high , pale brow , seeking for a simile -'these fundamentally good citizens , these smiths and browns and joneses and ' - he smiled across the desk - 'bonds , regarded the process of ennoblement as a sort of laying-on of hands , a way of ridding themselves of all the drabness of their lives , of all their , so to speak , essential meagreness , their basic inferiority .