Moral chap--like you and me, eh ?" and here followed another dig in the ribs.
This was getting intolerable.

However, at this point Whipcord pulled up at a wayside inn, much to my relief.

Anything was better than Masham's conversation.
We halted a quarter of an hour, to give our horse time to get breath, as Whipcord explained, but, as it really seemed, to allow that gentleman and Masham to refresh themselves also.
When we started again my companion began almost immediately to resume the conversation, but this time it was of a less personal nature, though disagreeable enough.
For he made no secret at all that he was a youth of depraved tastes and habits, and insisted on addressing me as though I resembled him in these respects.

He gave me what he doubtless intended to be a highly entertaining and spicy account of many of his escapades and exploits in town and country, appealing to me every few sentences as to what I should have said or done or thought in similar circumstances.
And when he had exhausted his stories of himself he told me stories of his friends, some of which were disgusting, some horrifying, and some stupid.

But with it all he had an air as if he believed everybody at heart was bad, and as if morality and sobriety and unselfishness were mere affectation and cant.
Has any of my readers ever met such a one as Masham?
I hope not.