As he foresaw, the shrinkage of the great Empire into the realm of old France caused intense dissatisfaction among the French, a feeling fed by stories of the tactless way in which the Bourbon princes treated veterans of the Grande Armée and the returning royalist nobility treated the people at large.

Oh yes, it is,' Jemmy had contradicted him in the flat and tactless way he had.

When Einstein learned of Mr. Flexner's intervention, he arranged to dine with the Roosevelts anyway, and complained to the institute's board that the director "has interfered several times in my private affairs, and that in a very tactless way."

It was a pretty tactless way to begin a relationship with his future boss, he admitted to himself, but he hadn't been able to resist it.

Mr Goria, 49, a former Christian Democrat prime minister, had long been a favourite target of opposition MPs and was unpopular in the country because of the chaotic and tactless way he introduced a hated property tax last year.

A minority of the refugees behaved in an exceedingly tactless way, and the feeling against them necessarily had an antisemitic undercurrent, since they were largely Jews.

It was a bit of a tactless way to put it, with one of the "prizes" sitting in front of him.

But he was touched, and disconcerted, by the tactless way in which Overbrook praised him: "We're mighty proud to have old George here to-night!