I thought some of the things I said were rather fine.

But he merely looked around at me, at distant intervals, something as I have seen a benignant old cat look around to see which kitten was meddling with her tail.
By and by I subsided into an indignant silence, and so sat until the end, hot and flushed, and execrating him in my heart for an ignorant savage.
But he was calm.

His conversation with those gentlemen flowed on as sweetly and peacefully and musically as any summer brook.

When the audience was ended and we were retiring from the presence, he put his hand on my head, beamed down on me in an admiring way and said to my brother: "Ah--your child, I presume?
Boy, or girl ?".