BLAYNE. (Stiffly.) Not much, thaanks.
CURTISS. (Quoting motto of Irregular Moguls.) “We are what we are,” eh, old man? But Gandy was such a superior animal as a rule. Why didn't he go Home and pick his wife there?
MACKESY. They are all alike when they come to the turn into the straight. About thirty a man begins to get sick of living alone.
CURTISS. And of the eternal muttony-chop in the morning.
DOONE. It's a dead goat as a rule, but go on, Mackesy.
MACKESY. If a man's once taken that way nothing will hold him, Do you remember Benoit of your service, Doone? They transferred him to Tharanda when his time came, and he married a platelayer's daughter, or something of that kind. She was the only female about the place.
DONE. Yes, poor brute. That smashed Benoit's chances of promotion altogether. Mrs. Benoit used to ask “Was you gem' to the dance this evenin'?”
CURTISS. Hang it all! Gandy hasn't married beneath him. There's no tarbrush in the family, I suppose.
JERVOISE. Tar-brush! Not an anna. You young fellows talk as though the man was doing the girl an honor in marrying her. You're all too conceited—nothing's good enough for you.
BLAYNE. Not even an empty Club, a dam' bad dinner at the Judge's, and a Station as sickly as a hospital. You're quite right. We're a set of Sybarites.