Grim. Really, Miss Mary Somerville, you are getting to be complimentary!
Cousin. No; I am getting to be candid. I have passed a week in your house, on your invitation. I leave you this afternoon; but, before I go, I mean to speak my mind.
Grim. It seems to me that you have spoken it rather freely already.
Cousin. What was there, in the circumstance of poor Michael's bringing you the wrong boots, to justify your flying into a rage, and bellowing as if your life had been threatened?
Grim. That fellow is perpetually making just such provoking blunders!
Cousin. And do you never make provoking blunders'? Didn't you send me five pounds of Hyson tea, when I wrote for Souchong'? Didn't you send a carriage for me to the cars, half an hour too late, so that I had to hire one myself, after great trouble'? And did I roar at you, when we met, because you had done these things'?
Grim. On the contrary, this is the first time you have alluded to them. I am sorry they should have happened. But surely you should make a distinction between any such little oversight of mine, and the stupidity of a servant, hired to attend to your orders.
Cousin. I do not admit that there should be a distinction. You are both human; only, as you have had the better education, and the greater advantages, stupidity or neglect on your part, is much the more culpable.
Grim. Thank you! Go on.
Cousin. I mean to; so don't be impatient. If an uncooked potato, or a burnt mutton-chop, happens to fall to your lot at the dinner-table, what a tempest follows! One would think you had been wronged, insulted, trampled on, driven to despair. Your face is like a thunder-cloud, all the rest of the meal. Your poor wife endeavors to hide her tears. Your children feel timid and miserable. Your guest feels as if she would like to see you held under the nose of the pump, and thoroughly ducked.