human
What! he began, delivering his words in a voice no longer nasal, but deep--more than deep--a voice made purposely hollow and cavernous--
gpt
I beg your pardon, Mr. Helstone, began Mr. Donne;
human
What do I talk about the gift of tongues? Gift, indeed! I mistook the chapter, and book, and Testament--gospel for law, Acts for Genesis, the city of Jerusalem for the plain of Shinar. It was no gift but the confusion of tongues which has gabbled me deaf as a post. _You_, apostles? What! you three? Certainly not; three presumptuous Babylonish masons--neither more nor less!
gpt
I assure you, sir, we were only having a little chat together over a glass of wine after a friendly dinner--settling the Dissenters!
human
Oh! settling the Dissenters, were you? Was Malone settling the Dissenters? It sounded to me much more like settling his co-apostles. You were quarrelling together, making almost as much noise--you three alone--as Moses Barraclough, the preaching tailor, and all his hearers are making in the Methodist chapel down yonder, where they are in the thick of a revival. I know whose fault it is.--It is yours, Malone.
gpt
Mine, sir?
human
Yours, sir. Donne and Sweeting were quiet before you came, and would be quiet if you were gone. I wish, when you crossed the Channel, you had left your Irish habits behind you. Dublin student ways won't do here. The proceedings which might pass unnoticed in a wild bog and mountain district in Connaught will, in a decent English parish, bring disgrace on those who indulge in them, and, what is far worse, on the sacred institution of which they are merely the humble appendages.