"With her appearance, the game has to be resigned to her entirely," he rejoined.
"That is," Lady Culmer continued, "if you do not despise an old woman for your comrade on a shopping excursion."
"Despise whom we fleece!" exclaimed Dr. Middleton. "Oh, no, Lady
Culmer, the sheep is sacred."
"I am not so sure," said Vernon.
"In what way, and to what extent, are you not so sure?" said Dr.
Middleton.
"The natural tendency is to scorn the fleeced."
"I stand for the contrary. Pity, if you like: particularly when they bleat."
"This is to assume that makers of gifts are a fleeced people: I demur," said Mrs. Mountstuart.
"Madam, we are expected to give; we are incited to give; you have dubbed it the fashion to give; and the person refusing to give, or incapable of giving, may anticipate that he will be regarded as benignly as a sheep of a drooping and flaccid wool by the farmer, who is reminded by the poor beast's appearance of a strange dog that worried the flock. Even Captain Benjamin, as you have seen, was unable to withstand the demand on him. The hymeneal pair are licensed freebooters levying blackmail on us; survivors of an uncivilized period. But in taking without mercy, I venture to trust that the manners of a happier era instruct them not to scorn us. I apprehend that Mr. Whitford has a lower order of latrons in his mind."
"Permit me to say, sir, that you have not considered the ignoble aspect of the fleeced," said Vernon. "I appeal to the ladies: would they not, if they beheld an ostrich walking down a Queen's Drawing Room, clean-plucked, despise him though they were wearing his plumes?"