every inch a gentleman

"Couldn't think of it," he announced, every inch a gentleman.

He was very handsome and every inch a gentleman.

Jeremy, my father's friend and Lila's husband, was every inch a gentleman.

Page saluted again and marched off, every inch a gentleman.

Also, "He is a most friendly boy, of sweet nature, and every inch a gentleman, withal very modest and unassuming, yet very self-reliant too."

The tremendously sophisticated, extraordinarily primitive, utterly terrifying Richard Onslow Roper, every inch a gentleman and the most appalling villain, may have the last word:

That is Nazhuret of Soidaling, and you have no more loyal knight in Velonyal" I turned to gape at Arlin, gangling at the edge of the fire, fully dressed in his silver velvets, every inch a gentleman and every inch a civilian.

Unlike Mr. Wilson's subtle and sophisticated social comedies for adults, this furry saga can be a thuddingly heavy-handed item, a series of vignettes that, like its hero (who is described in an introductory passage as "every inch a gentleman," yet himself professes to disdain "gentility"), seem to have a distinctly schizophrenic cast.

He looked, as he was, every inch a gentleman; he must have been everywhere notable, even among handsome men, both for his face and his gallant bearing; not so much that of a sailor, you would have said, as like one of those gentle and graceful soldiers that, to this day, are the most pleasant of Englishmen to see.