"A BORN IDIOT."
"Well, ma'am, let me have your own story from your own lips."
"Why, sir, do you use no more ceremony with me, knowing who I am, sir? When your ancestors, sir, were working on the queen's highways, and breaking stones——"
"I beg your pardon, madam; but it is but a short time since Macadamising was introduced, and my ancestors happened to live at a period prior to the breaking of stones on high-roads as a business."
"Well, sir, but you have interrupted me, and I forgot what I was going to say. Oh ay! I was going to tell you that my ancestors rode in coaches, when yours drove carts; that mine spent thousands upon thousands, whilst yours were dealing in tarry-woo and candle grease; and yet you, sir—you now sit in this cottage of yours (as you must needs call it)—you have the audacity, and the impertinence, and the presumption, forsooth, to call my son to account for shooting a few of your dirty birds over your poor, paltry acres."
"Ma'am, I only warned him off my preserves, and did it in civil language, too; but your son, taking his cue, I have no doubt, from so accomplished a parent, used improper and ungentlemanly language to me, and threatened to horsewhip me; so I thought it was only justice to myself to put him into the hands of my man of business."
"Your man of business, sir! And who gave you, or your father's son, a man of business, pray? What business may you have to manage, which a servant lass may not conduct to a favourable conclusion with a three-pronged grape?"
"Madam, I will stand this no longer. This house is my own. Depart!"
There she goes, wagging her tail and tossing her head, the Born Idiot!
But here comes a change of person, in