The Professor (to Hostess). "Thank you so much for a most delightful evening! I shall indeed go to bed with pleasant recollections—and you will be the very last person I shall think of!"
And again, of the same series:
Fair Hostess. "Good-night, Major Jones. We're supposed to breakfast at nine, but we're not very punctual people. Indeed the later you appear to-morrow morning, the better pleased we shall all be" (May 13, 1893).
"Things one would rather have left unsaid":
He. "Yes, I know Bootle slightly, and confess I don't think much of him!"
She. "I know him a little too. He took me in to dinner a little while ago!"
He. "Ah, that's just about all he's fit for!"
The Hostess. "Dear Miss Linnet! would you—would you sing one of those charming ballads, while I go and see if supper's ready?"
The Companion. "O, don't ask me—I feel nervous. There are so many people."
The Hostess. "O, they won't listen, bless you! not one of them! Now DO!!!"
And here is a conversation that betrays the presence of one of the currents of public feeling below the smooth surface of well-bred twaddle:
In the Metropolitan Railway. "I beg your pardon, but I think I had the pleasure of meeting you in Rome last year?"
"No, I've never been nearer to Rome than St. Alban's."
"St. Alban's? Where is that?"
"Holborn."
Some rather amusing speeches of a different character in which du Maurier assails the more obvious forms of snobbery of a class below those with whom his art was generally concerned may be given:
Among the Philistines. Grigsby. "Do you know the Joneses, Mrs. Brown?"
"No, we—er—don't care to know Business people as a rule, although my husband's in business; but then he's in the Coffee Business and they're all gentlemen in the Coffee Business, you know!"
Grigsby (who always suits himself to his company). "Really now! Why, that's more than can be said of the Army, the Navy, the Church, the Bar, or even the House of Lords! I don't wonder at your being rather exclusive!" (Punch's Almanac, 1882).