Mr. Neverout. Quite a different thing, my Lord! In our days School Boards, Labour Members, and American Millionaires had not been invented. Creech had indeed translated Horace into the vernacular, but Jowett had not Englished the Platonic Dialogues for the benefit of Extension Lectures and hack journalists.
Colonel Alwit. Faith, I could never stomach that inquisitive bore Socrates and his dreary dialoguists. That gay, wicked, but debonair dog, Lucian, was more to my mind.
Mr. Neverout. Ah! who of our latter-day dialogue-mongers could equal the smart and really quite fin-de-siècle cynic of Samosata?
Miss Notable. Well, as Tibbalds, said:—
"I am no schollard, but I am polite,
Therefore be sure I'm no Jacobite."
So I've not read your Lucians and Platos and things. But I like Gyp, and Anthony Hope. I vow he hath a true touch of "the quality," and he vastly delights me.
Mr. Neverout. Does he not go nigh to make you blush, now and anon?
Miss Notable. Blush? Ay, blush like a blue dog.
Lady Smart. Still I maintain the Town to-day cannot talk.