John Thorpe certainly doesn't do anything to endear himself to the reader. To his mother he says, "where did you get that quiz of a hat, it makes you look like an old witch?" and the poor younger sisters are told "they both looked very ugly."

"These manners did not please Catherine," but she was trying to be polite as "he was James's friend and Isabella's brother."

The arrival of John Thorpe and James Morland has put a stop to Isabella's merry pursuit, with Catherine in tow, of the "alarming young men" from the Pump-room.