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There is one case I must observe to you in which recrimination has peculiar poignancy. If you have had it in your power to confer obligations on any one, never cease reminding them of it: and let them feel that you have acquired an indefeasible right to reproach them without a possibility of their retorting.
But Balzac, retorting that whatever service had been rendered was not to himself but by himself, dismissed his visitors with the words: "We have spent an hour, gentlemen, in useless talk. You have made me lose two hundred francs. For me, time is money. I must work. Good-day."
And when, in more recent times, the devilish ingenuity of science invented poisonous gas, there was nothing unmanly or unchivalrous in retorting on our German enemies with the hideous weapon which they had first employed. But this is not the kind of reprisal which indurated orators demand.
Fledgeby retorting that he never heard of any such case but his own, Twemlow goes down again heavily. 'There is nothing new this morning, I suppose? says Twemlow, returning to the mark with great spirit. Fledgeby has not heard of anything. 'No, there's not a word of news, says Lammle. 'Not a particle, adds Boots. 'Not an atom, chimes in Brewer.
He laughed at the smallest pleasantry, and showed his great white English teeth; he took a joke without retorting by an impertinence; he had a very limited curiosity about all that was going on; he had small store of information; he lived chiefly in his horses, it seemed to me.
Grove's proposal seemed unavoidably reasonable. He would telephone Fanny again in the morning and explain. Fanny, his wife! Well, he continued, as though he were angrily retorting to a criticism from without, no man ever better realized the splendid qualities of his wife. That was beyond contradiction; and he sharply added that not Fanny, but the role of a wife, a housewife, was under observation.
For if we had furnished them with that argument which is perhaps the one which they actually used, "We did so because our enemies warred against us without any considerations of justice and piety," we should then be digressing to the subject of retorting an accusation, of which we will speak hereafter. But it is manifest that both kinds of question are incidental to this controversy.
I cannot however believe that they possess any exclusive privileges or supernatural gifts; though it will be hard to find one who thinks better of them than I do: but Spaniards can sing sequedillas under their mistresses window well enough; and our Welch people can make the harper sit down in the church-yard after service is over, and placing themselves round him, command the instrument to go over some old song-tune: when having listened a while, one of the company forms a stanza of verses, which run to it in well-adapted measure; and as he ends, another begins: continuing the tale, or retorting the satire, according to the style in which the first began it.
In the mean time General Oglethorpe was making all possible preparations at Frederica for a vigorous stand. Message after message was sent to his Indian allies, who were greatly attached to him, and crowded to his camp. A company of Highlanders joined him on the first notice; and seemed joyful at the opportunity of retorting Spanish vengeance on their own heads.
Less care is required in retorting the mercury than in treating the amalgam, as the object in the one case is more to cleanse the metal of impurities than to save gold, which will for the most part have been extracted by squeezing through the chamois leather or calico.
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