"I heartily wish he had! I could back old Doncaster against the world, for being the dullest proser in the United Kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland, with the Colonies besides. He will die talking, for he talks everybody else to death! The Abbe, too, has no more mind than a sparrow. His conversation should be filtered every evening to purify it from bad taste of every kind. He picks up half a dozen stories every morning at the ordinary, and retails them to any wearied victim who can be forced to listen at night; when these are done so is he—his barrel organ has run down—and you may know when the Abbe has come to an end, by observing the hurry he is in to be off."
"You are an habitual hater, Captain De Crespigny, and have put on your black cap to condemn us all this evening; but I will not have our good Abbe hissed off the stage in this way."
"Good! Look out that word, Mrs. O'Donoghoe, in the dictionary to-morrow, for you cannot know its real meaning!"
"Your criticisms on his conversation are like a shower of sleet this cold night, but I assure you the Abbe started a perfected new story yesterday, and I have sometimes heard him say very good things!"
"Then you have the advantage of everybody else, for I have known him since the time of William the Conqueror, and who ever heard of his saying or doing a single good thing? He cannot even understand one. The whole pattern of his conversation is egotism in all its branches, and you must positively permit me to enjoy my detestation of the Abbe in peace."
"I allow that he is in bad taste occasionally," whispered Mrs. O'Donoghoe, confidentially. "The Abbe can say very shocking things without causing one to feel shocked. If he has any hypocrisy, it is in trying to appear worse than he is."
"Could any one be worse? That seems to me impossible. No human being would think of calling me strict, but of all the odious, revolting sights I know, none can go beyond an irreligious clergy-man. The Abbe always looks to me like a person who had something very heavy upon his conscience—a guilty, suspicious expression of countenance. I have occasionally wondered, Mrs. O'Donoghoe, to see you out-laugh him at some of his own abortive attempts to be witty; but you can do many things that no other person can, and that is one of them."
"Captain De Crespigny, we must now and then laugh at other people's jokes besides our own!"
"I never laugh! I am the gravest man in Europe. I do sometimes give a bewitching smile, but never more."
"Did you ever try an ineffable look?"