CHAPTER XXXVIII 

"Speak not of niceness, when there's chance of wreck," The captain said, as ladies writhed their neck To see the dying dolphin flap the deck: "If we go down, on us these gentry sup; We dine upon them, if we haul them up. Wise men applaud us when we eat the eaters, As the devil laughs when keen folks cheat the cheaters." --THE SEA VOYAGE. 

There was nothing in Duke's manner towards Christian which could have conveyed to that latter personage, experienced as he was in the worst possible ways of the world, that Buckingham would, at that particular moment, rather have seen the devil than himself; unless it was that Buckingham's reception of him, being rather extraordinarily courteous towards so old an acquaintance, might have excited some degree of suspicion. 

Having escaped with some difficulty from the vague region of general compliments, which bears the same relation to that of business that Milton informs us the _Limbo Patrum_ has to the sensible and material earth, Christian asked his Grace of Buckingham, with the same blunt plainness with which he usually veiled a very deep and artificial character, whether he had lately seen Chiffinch or his helpmate? 

"Neither of them lately," answered Buckingham. "Have not you waited on them yourself?--I thought you would have been more anxious about the great scheme." 

"I have called once and again," said Christian, "but I can gain no access to the sight of that important couple. I begin to be afraid they are paltering with me." 
was someone extra polite?
Having escaped with some difficulty from the vague region of general compliments, which bears the same relation to that of business that Milton informs us the _Limbo Patrum_ has to the sensible and material earth, Christian asked his Grace of Buckingham, with the same blunt plainness with which he usually veiled a very deep and artificial character, whether he had lately seen Chiffinch or his helpmate? 