"It is an excellent joke.

The cream of it is too that I am in earnest; neither you nor any of those ladies whom I see out there will sit at my table again." "You are not in earnest! You do not mean it!" "I can assure you," Trent replied grinning, "that I do!" "But do you mean," Da Souza spluttered, "that we are to go like this--to be turned out--the laughing-stock of your servants, after we have come back too, all the way ?--oh, it is nonsense! It's not to be endured!" "You can go to the devil!" Trent answered coolly.

"There is not one of you whom I care a fig to see again.

You thought that I was ruined, and you scudded like rats from a sinking ship.

Well, I found you out, and a jolly good thing too.