“Well! I like the assurance of you! Do I read so as to annoy any one?”
“Yes, you do. You daren't read aloud, because you would be put out of the church if you did; but you annoy as many of the congregation as can see you, and you annoy me. Why should you behave in that house as if it were your own, and yet shoot me if I behaved so in yours? Is it fair? Is it polite? Is it acting like a lady?”
“It is my house—at least it is my pew, and I will do in it what I please.—Look here, Mr. Wingfold: I don't want to lose my temper with you, but I tell you that pew is mine, as much as the chair you're not ashamed to sit upon at this moment! And let me tell you, after the way I've been treated, my behaviour don't splash much. When he's brought a woman to my pass, I don't see God Almighty can complain of her manners!”
“Well, thinking of him as you do, I don't wonder you are rude!”
“What! You won't curry favour with him?—You hold by fair play? Come now! I call that downright pluck!”
“I fear you mistake me a little.”
“Of course I do! I might have known that! When you think a parson begins to speak like a man, you may be sure you mistake him!”
“You wouldn't behave to a friend of your own according to what another person thought of him, would you?”
“No, by Jove, I wouldn't!”
“Then you won't expect me to do so!”