So was
the excellent Mr. Richards.
"This is a good island," observed that gentleman. "We discourse like
sages and drink like swine. Peace with Honour! . . . How that old Jew
took our English measure, eh? How he laughed in his sleeve at our
infatuation for a phrase like that. Peace with Honour! The sort of
claptrap that makes a man feel so jolly comfortable inside, so damned
satisfied with everything like after a good deed. And that sentimental
primrose business. Dizzy as flower-expert! What cared he for primroses?
Votes and moneybags was what he was after. But he knew the British
Public. And that accounts for the pious domestic button-hole. Who ever
heard of a Jew telling the difference between a primrose and any other
kind of rose? They're not such blasted fools."
"Excuse me," said Keith, rising from his seat in an afflatus of
inspiration. "Excuse me. I know the difference. It is primarily a
question of nutrition. Glucose! I am a great believer in glucose.
Because, even if it could be proved that the monks of Palaiokastron
stripped the vine of its leaves and thereby hastened the maturing of
the grape without reducing its natural supply of sugar--"
"You don't shine," interrupted Denis, "when you talk like that.
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