He went into the cottages personally and lectured the people, and that they never will stand.

They don't require or expect you to believe what they say--in fact they have little respect for you if you do--but they like to have the agent pretend that he believes them, and then go on and show that he don't.
But he must never lose his temper about it.

Colonel Dopping, I have heard, argued with an old woman one day who was telling him more yarns than were ever spun into cloth in Gweedore, till she picked up her cup of tea and threw it in his face.

He flounced out of the cottage, and ordered the police to arrest her.

That did him more harm than if he had shot a dozen boys." "What with the temper of Colonel Dopping and the vacillation of Captain Hill, who is always of the mind of the last man that speaks to him, Father M'Fadden has had it all his own way.