Drive a donkey too hard; it kicks.
Drive a man too hard; it hits.
Drive a woman too hard; it cajoles.
Now amongst them they had driven Kate Peyton too hard; so she secretly formed a bold resolution; and, this done, her whole manner changed for the better. She turned to Neville, and flattered and fascinated him. The most feline of her sex could scarcely equal her calinerie on this occasion. But she did not confine her fascination to him. She broke out, pro bono publico, like the sun in April, with quips and cranks and dimpled smiles, and made everybody near her quite forget her late hauteur and coldness, and bask in this sunny sweet hostess. When the charm was at its height, the Siren cast a seeming merry glance at Griffith, and said to a lady opposite, "Methinks some of the gentlemen will be glad to be rid of us," and so carried the ladies off to the drawing-room.
There, her first act was to dismiss her smiles without ceremony, and her second was to sit down and write four lines to the gentleman at the head of the dining-table.
And he was as drunk as a fiddler.
[CHAPTER X]
Griffith's friends laughed heartily with him while he was getting drunk, and, when he had got drunk, they laughed still louder, only at him.
They "knocked him down" for a song; and he sang a rather Anacreontic one very melodiously, and so loud that certain of the servants, listening outside, derived great delectation from it; and Neville applauded ironically.