There's worse fish than the mackerel, as you'll discover if you go to South Africa, and find yourself living on a bit of some ancient tough beast of an ostrich, or whatever it may happen to be that they eat out there.' In his exalted mood Hyacinth felt insulted at the praise of the mackerel and the laughter in the priest's eyes when he suggested a dinner off ostrich.

He held out his hand, and said good-bye.
'Wait, now--wait,' said the priest; 'don't be in such a tearing hurry.
I'll talk as serious as you like, and not hurt your feelings, if you'll stay for a minute or two.

Listen, now.

Isn't the language dying on the people's lips?
They're talking the English, more and more of them every day; and don't you know as well as I do that when they lose their Irish they'll lose half the good that's in them?
What sort will the next generation of our people be, with their own language gone from them, and their Irish ways forgotten, and all the old tales and songs and tunes perished away like the froth of the waves that the storm blew up across the fields the night your father died?
I'll tell you what they'll be--just sham Englishmen.

And the Lord knows the real thing is not the best kind of man in the world, but the copy of an Englishman! sure, that's the poorest creature to be found anywhere on the face of God's good earth.