_Mr. Neverout_ (_reading_). "I cannot but with some pride, and much
pleasure, congratulate with my dear country, which has outdone all the
nations of Europe, in advancing the whole art of conversation to the
greatest height it is capable of reaching."
_Colonel Alwit._ Ha! ha! ha! So wrote the Dean in the Eighteenth
Century. I wonder what he would say now!
_Mr. Neverout_ (_continuing_). "The whole genius, humour, politeness,
and eloquence of England are summed up in it."
[Illustration]
_Miss Notable._ Oh la! Let anyone now take a matron down to dinner, or
sit out a dance with a pretty girl!
_Lord Sparkish._ "The whole genius, humour, politeness, and eloquence
of England" must have gone out with full-bottomed wigs and hooped
petticoats.
_Lady Answerall._ I protest that a neat repartee, or a "smart turn of
wit or humour," is the rarest of things nowadays.
_Lord Smart._ Save among cabmen and costers.
_Sir John Linger._ Faith, my Lord, your street Arabs and gutter-snipes
have a smack of it. _They_ are the true NEVEROUTS and NOTABLES of the
time.
_Miss Notable._ Sir JOHN, you do me proud!
_Mr. Neverout._ Out on this pestilent, levelling democracy, which
brings even wit to its last refuge, the gutter!
_Colonel Alwit._ Better lie, like SHERIDAN, with Wit in the gutter,
than perch, like H----Y, with Dulness on the Woolsack!
_Mr. Neverout._ Egad! Miss NOTABLE has wit at will.
_Miss Notable._ And Mr. NEVEROUT would be Echo, were he not Narcissus.
_Lady Smart._ Humph! We've had the "humour" and the "politeness," now
for the eloquence.
_Mr. Neverout._
"CHLOE, of every coxcomb jealous,
Admires how girls can talk with fellows."
_Miss Notable._
In dinner's blanks, in dancing's whirls,
The fellows cannot talk with girls.
_Lord Sparkish._ Well capped, i' faith!
_Sir John Linger._ Will the New Woman talk, I wonder?
_Lady Answerall._ Nay; as she claims all Man's special privileges,
from votes to cigarettes, from bicycles to latch-keys, she will hardly
forego his most cherished and distinctive one--taciturnity!
_Mr. Neverout._ There was a travelling fellow awhile ago who hung
himself up in a cage in the tropical forests, to study the language
of--monkeys. Why did not he turn his attention to the equally scanty,
inarticulate, and unintelligible utterance of that Society Simian,
the haw-haw "Masher"--is not that the term for an up-to-date dandy, my
Lord?--of the banquet and the ball-room?
_Lady Smart._ Ah! now the eloquence-tap is turned on!
_Mr. Neverout._ But not like the Mulberry One's, at the main, your
Ladyship!
_Miss Notable._ Ah! if they had but companies to turn on talk at
pleasure, as they do gas and water!
_Colonel Alwit._ As it is, it comes like fountains in the desert or
Trafalgar Square--only in intermittent spurts and squirts, not like
the water company's never-failing service, on the "constant supply"
system.
_Sir John Linger._ Humph! An East-end fishmonger's comment might throw
some light on that subject, Colonel.
_Lady Sparkish._ Well, Sir JOHN, we must admit that the growth of
Science keeps pace with the spread of Stupidity. So doubtless the time
will soon come when pocket-phonographs will obviate the necessity of
individual vocal efforts, and leave men to give undivided attention to
their dinners, matrons to their daughters' marriage-chances, maidens
to the marriageable men, and marriageable men to their--moustaches!
_Mr. Neverout._ Unless, indeed, when we know all we shall be silent
about everything.
_Lord Sparkish._ Quite likely, my dear NEVEROUT. Already talk--except
in spurts and spasms--is confined mainly to childhood--first
or second. Of the Seven Ages of Man--I say nought about Woman,
ladies!--why, the first and last only are loquacious.
_Lady Smart._ In which of the two garrulous stages would you place
Parliament, my Lord?
_Lord Sparkish._ The Commons in the former; the Lords in the latter.
_Colonel Alwit._ And the Hibernian Members?
_Lord Sparkish._ Oh, faith! an "iligant" blend of _both!!!_
_Lady Answerall._ Well, _I_ agree with sweet WILLIAM'S _Gratiano_,
that--
"Silence is only commendable
In a neat's tongue dried, and a maid not vendible."
_Mr. Neverout._ While your Ladyship speaks, speech will ever be
silvern!
_Miss Notable._ And silence is not yet golden--in the Shades.
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