ted him:

"Did you ever go to the dentist, mister?" he said, working at a loose
tooth with his shrivelled fingers. "I went to a dentist once, who
professed to stop teeth without giving pain, and the beggar did stop my
teeth without pain; but did they stay in, those stoppings? No, my bhoy;
they came out before you could say Jack Robinson. Now, I shimply ask
you, d'you call that dentistry?" Fixing his eyes on Shelton's collar,
which had the misfortune to be high and clean, he resumed with drunken
scorn: "Ut's the same all over this pharisaical counthry. Talk of high
morality and Anglo-Shaxon civilisation! The world was never at such
low ebb! Phwhat's all this morality? Ut stinks of the shop. Look at the
condition of Art in this counthry! look at the fools you see upon th'
stage! look at the pictures and books that sell! I know what I'm talking
about, though I am a sandwich man. Phwhat's the secret of ut all? Shop,
my bhoy! Ut don't pay to go below a certain depth! Scratch the skin, but
pierce ut--Oh! dear, no! We hate to see the blood fly, eh?"

Shelton stood disconcerted, not knowing if he were expected to reply;
but the old gentleman, pursing up his lips, went on:

"Sir, there are no extremes in this fog-smitten land. Do ye think
blanks loike me ought to exist? Whoy don't they kill us off?
Palliatives--palliatives--and whoy? Because they object to th' extreme
course. Look at women: the streets here are a scandal to the world. They
won't recognise that they exist--their noses are so dam high! They blink
the truth in this middle-class counthry. My bhoy"--and he whispered
confidentially--"ut pays 'em. Eh? you say, why shouldn't they, then?"
(But Shelton had not spoken.) "Well, let'em! let 'em! But don't tell
me that'sh morality, don't tell me that'sh civilisation! What can you
expect in a counthry where the crimson, emotions are never allowed to
smell the air? And what'sh the result? My bhoy, the result is sentiment,
a yellow thing with blue spots, like a fungus or a Stilton cheese. Go to
the theatre, and see one of these things they call plays. Tell me, are
they food for men and women? Why, they're pap for babes and shop-boys! I
was a blanky actor moyself!"

Shelton listened with mingled feelings of amusement and dismay, till the
old actor, having finished, resumed his crouching posture at the table.

"You don't get dhrunk, I suppose?" he said suddenly--"too much of 'n
Englishman, no doubt."

"Very seldom," said She