To these admonitory words, /sacro digna silentio/, Saunderson junior listened with a dropping jaw and fascinated staring eyes. He felt like an infant to whom the nurse has given a hasty shake, and who is too stupefied by that operation to know whether he is hurt or not.
A minute after Kenelm had quitted the room he reappeared at the door, and said in a conciliatory whisper, "Don't take it to heart that I called you a conceited fool and an ass. These terms are no doubt just as applicable to myself. But there is a more conceited fool and a greater ass than either of us; and that is the Age in which we have the misfortune to be born,—an Age of Progress, Mr. Saunderson, junior!—an Age of Prigs."