‘Not at all improbable, so far as I know of your resources.’
‘What a churlish dog it is! Now had you, Master Dick, proposed to me that we should go down and pass a week at a certain small thatched cottage on the banks of the Ban, where a Presbyterian minister with eight olive branches vegetates, discussing tough mutton and tougher theology on Sundays, and getting through the rest of the week with the parables and potatoes, I’d have said, Done!’
‘It was the inopportune time I was thinking of. Who knows what confusion this event may not have thrown them into? If you like to risk the discomfort, I make no objection.’
‘To so heartily expressed an invitation there can be but one answer, I yield.’
‘Now look here, Joe, I’d better be frank with you: don’t try it on at Kilgobbin as you do with me.’
‘You are afraid of my insinuating manners, are you?’
‘I am afraid of your confounded impudence, and of that notion you cannot get rid of, that your cool familiarity is a fashionable tone.’
‘How men mistake themselves. I pledge you my word, if I was asked what was the great blemish in my manner, I’d have said it was bashfulness.’
‘Well, then, it is not!’
‘Are you sure, Dick, are you quite sure?’