Perhaps some excuse may be found for his emotion in the fact that for weeks he had heard no poetry except the ode about 'wiping something off a slate.' The violence of the contrast benumbed his critical faculty.

So a man who was obliged to gaze for a long time at the new churches erected in Belfast might afterwards catch himself in the act of admiring the houses which the Congested Districts Board builds in Connaught.
'I am afraid I must have bored you.' It was Miss O'Dwyer who greeted him.

'I didn't see you and Mr.Maguire come in until I had commenced my poor little poem.

I ought to have given you some tea before I inflicted it on you.' 'Oh,' said Hyacinth, 'it was beautiful.

Is it really your own?
Did you write it ?' Miss O'Dwyer flushed.