Say what you like about civilization, it comes in dashed handy in a crisis like this

Fortunately, the thing did not go beyond looks. Say what you like about civilization, it comes in dashed handy in a crisis like this. It may be a purely artificial code that keeps a father from hoofing his daughter's kisser when there are fellow guests at a house but at that moment I felt I could do with all the purely artificial codes that were going.

P.G. Wodehouse, Thank you, Jeeves (1934), 61