Thereupon I laid a general case before Sir John, asking him point-blank whether he considered such conduct as Quinby's (but I did not say whose the conduct was) either justifiable in itself or conducive to the enjoyment of a holiday community like ours.
"It depends," said the judge, cocking a critical eye on the now furious Quinby.

"I am afraid we most of us enjoy our scandal, and for my part I always like to see a humbug catch it hot.

But if the scandal's about a woman, and if it's an old scandal, and if she's a lonely woman, that quite alters the case, and in my opinion the author of it deserves all he gets." At this Quinby burst out, with an unrestrained heat that did not lower him in my estimation, though the whole of his tirade was directed exclusively against me.

I had been talking "at" him, he declared.

I might as well have been straightforward while I was about it.