text: ) When one had to dine at the same table with him one contrived to take up a position as remote as possible from the interruption of his thin wiry ill-modulated voice--the _false_ suavity of which in saying impertinent things was really so disagreeable that one would have renounced the society of wit or beauty on the right hand rather than have been flanked by Mr Snapley on the _left_ and thankfully have accepted the companionship _pro hac vice_ of the plainest woman or the dullest man of the party to be only completely out of his reach