THAT doesn't matter; it's quite the thing nowadays to stare
at people as if they were yearlings at Tattersall's."

"Mrs. Spelvexit? Quite a charming woman; separated from her
husband" -

"Incompatibility of income?"

"Oh, nothing of that sort. By miles of frozen ocean, I was
going to say. He explores ice-floes and studies the
movements of herrings, and has written a most interesting
book on the home-life of the Esquimaux; but naturally he has
very little home-life of his own."

"A husband who comes home with the Gulf Stream WOULD be
rather a tied-up asset."

"His wife is exceedingly sensible about it. She collects
postage-stamps. Such a resource. Those people with her are
the Whimples, very old acquaintances of mine; they're always
having trouble, poor things."

"Trouble is not one of those fancies you can take up and drop
at any moment; it's like a grouse-moor or the opium-habit--
once you start it you've got to keep it up."

"Their eldest son was such a disappointment to them; they
wanted him to be a linguist, and spent no end of money on
having him taught to speak--oh, dozens of languages!--and
then he became a Trappist monk. And the youngest, who was