I could not say anything.

I was entirely out of verbal obliquities; to go further would be to lie, and that I would not do; so I simply sat still and suffered--sat mutely and resignedly there, and sizzled--for I was being slowly fried to death in my own blushes.
Presently the enemy laughed a happy laugh and said: "I HAVE enjoyed this talk over old times, but you have not.

I saw very soon that you were only pretending to know me, and so as I had wasted a compliment on you in the beginning, I made up my mind to punish you.

And I have succeeded pretty well.

I was glad to see that you knew George and Tom and Darley, for I had never heard of them before and therefore could not be sure that you had; and I was glad to learn the names of those imaginary children, too.