See,' I added, kicking off one shoe, for I had no stockings; 'I was no more than a child, and see how they had begun to treat myself.' He looked at the mark of my old burn with a certain shrinking.

'Beastly people!' I heard him mutter to himself.
'The English may say so with a good grace,' I observed politely.
Such speeches were the coin in which I paid my way among this credulous race.

Ninety per cent.

of our visitors would have accepted the remark as natural in itself and creditable to my powers of judgment, but it appeared my lawyer was more acute.
'You are not entirely a fool, I perceive,' said he.
'No,' said I; 'not wholly.' 'And yet it is well to beware of the ironical mood,' he continued.

'It is a dangerous instrument.