Of the green earth,’
I shall still love them one and all.”
Nescio. “Yes.
‘Dulcé ridentem Lalagen amabo
Dulcé loquentem.’”
Tristo. “I am no ladies’ man. I am too grave for their society. Yet I am willing to acknowledge that, together with their influence, they are half that makes life valuable. They are the purifying and refining ingredient in the seething caldron of society. Their perceptions are more rapid and acute than ours, and if deceitful, it is from necessity, which you know is the mother of invention.”
Pulito. “For my part, the absence of those pretty faces, which I have been wont to see in my ‘walk and conversation,’ will greatly deepen my regret at leaving this delightful place.”
Apple. “Pooh! couldn’t you sentimentalize a bit? ‘Pone me pigris ubi nulla campis, Arbor æstivâ recreatur aurâ,’ &c. Turn me adrift in New England, New Guinea, or New Zealand, and let me have good meats, good drinks, good kapniphorous cigars and a dozen comedies, and I don’t care a rush.”
Pulito. “Oh! what an animal! Why, Dumpling, do you suppose you have a soul, or are you a mere lump of flesh, a ‘congregation of skin, bone and spissitude,’ to use one of your own ridiculous phrases?”
Apple. “Yes, Pully, I suspect I have such a thing as a soul somewhere—but I cannot determine its locale—neither do I fash my beard thereanent, since it is the only immaterial thing about me, ha! ha!”