A young gentleman complimented Miss Stokoe the other night in company upon her “exquisite touch on the piano” and the “nightingale tones of her voice in singing;” but as he was walking home from the party with Miss Nance, he said to her (of course in the absence of Miss Stokoe) that “Miss Stokoe, after all that is said in her praise, is no more than an ordinary pianist and singer.”
“That was a most excellent sermon you gave us this morning,” said Mr. Clarke to the Rev. T. Ross, as he was dining with him at his house. “I hope it will not be long before you visit us again.”
“I am obliged for your compliment,” replied Mr. Ross.
A day or two after Mr. Clarke was heard to say that he had never listened to such “a dull sermon, and he hoped it would be a long time ere the reverend gentleman appeared in their pulpit again.”
“What darling little cherubs your twins are,” said Mrs. Horton to Mrs. Shenstone in an afternoon gathering of ladies at her house. “I really should be proud of them if they were mine: such lovely eyes, such rosy cheeks, such beautiful hair, and withal such sweet expressions of the countenance! And then, how tastily they are dressed! Dear darlings! come and kiss me.”
Mrs. Shenstone smiled complacently in return; and shortly after retired from the room, when the two “little cherubs” approached their prodigious admirer, with a view to make friends and impress upon her the solicited kiss. She instantly put them at arm’s length from her, saying to Mrs. Teague, who sat next her, “What pests these little things are, treading on my dress, and obtruding their presence on me like this. I do wish Mrs. Shenstone had taken them out of the room with her.”
“I am deeply grieved to learn,” said Farmer Shirley one day to his neighbour, Farmer Stout, “that your circumstances are such as they are. Now, if you think I can help you in any way, do not be backward in sending to me. You shall always find a friend in me.”
That very afternoon this same farmer Shirley was heard to say in a company of farmers at the “Queen’s Head” that Stout had brought all his difficulties upon himself, and he was not sorry for him a bit. The next day Stout availed himself of the “great kindness” offered him by Shirley, and sent to ask the loan of a pound to pay the baker’s bill, in order to keep the “staff of life” in the house for his family; when Shirley sent word back to him that he had “no pounds to lend anybody, much less one who had by his own extravagance brought himself into such difficult circumstances.”
This double-tongued talker is not unfrequently met with in public meetings. Especially is he heard in “moving votes of thanks,” and “drinking toasts.” Fulsome praises and glowing eulogiums are poured out by him in rich abundance, which, as soon as the meetings are over, are eaten up again by the same person, but of course in the absence of his much-admired gods.
It would not be difficult to go on with instances illustrative of these double-tongued exercises. They are almost as universal as the multifarious phases of society. They are met with in the street, in the shop, in the family, in the church, in the court, in the palace and cottage, among the rich and poor.