Lord Sparkish. All sauciness and slang, like the soliloquy of a Cheap Jack.
Mr. Neverout. Modish conversation, to-day, seems to borrow its diction from the music-hall, and its repartee from the 'bus conductor.
Miss Notable. Oh fie! Now our "Polite and Ingenious Conversation," as the dear Dean of St. Patrick reported it, was vastly different. Did not Mr. Swift declare that he defied all the clubs and coffee-houses in the town to equal it in wit, humour, smartness or politeness?
Lady Sparkish. Yes; yes, indeed! And he had scruples about prostituting "this noble art to mean and vulgar people."
Mr. Neverout. Egad, the penny daily paper and the sixpenny illustrated weekly have altered all that. "Mean and vulgar people" now write books and journals, as well as read 'em.
Miss Notable. For my part I don't like dialogues, except upon the stage. They are so mortally dull.
Lady Sparkish. Nay, but my dear girl, the Dean says, you must remember, "Dialogue is held the best method of inculcating any part of knowledge; and I am confident that public schools will soon be founded for teaching wit and politeness, after my scheme, to young people of quality and fortune."
Mr. Neverout. Perhaps the present rage for dialogues is the first step in that direction.
Lady Answerall. Pah! there are no "young persons of quality" now!
Lord Sparkish. Though plenty of young persons of fortune!