"Don't talk to me of association, or accuracy, or grammar, or anything else. Custom overrides all with us."
"The trouble is, that you will not allow it to do so with us," he returned, smiling.
"Really, I think we might be allowed to know how to speak our own language!"
"Not if you go on changing it all the time, according to the vagaries of fashion. When we have gotten hold of a word, we stick to it. Look at that poor word 'genteel,' which was such a useful servant to you all through the last century, and now you have kicked it into the gutter!"
"It deserved kicking into the gutter. It had become so frayed and tarnished that it wasn't fit to wear. We have incorporated a number of new words into the language, so no one can complain because we discard one or two."
"If the new ones supplied the vacuum, but they do not. You have no word to replace 'genteel.' Your argument reminds me of a man who, having lost his boots, put on two hats and an overcoat!"
Thus they sparred amicably through that pleasant dinner, the least animated participator in which, beyond a doubt, was Mordaunt Ballinger. And yet he sat beside Mrs. Courtly, whom he sincerely liked, and who, though she tried to make the conversation general, found an opportunity to say to him,
"I have heard of our friends' arrival at Pittsburgh."
"Do they speak of going to California?" he asked, quickly.
"Mrs. Planter's cough was worse as soon as she got home," replied Mrs. Courtly, with a smile. "That promises well."