"The import of your Tale is not lost on me," Jack let it be known, watching de Gex transfer the last of the clinking bags into the satchel. Then, in a different tone, he reflected: "It is curious. I always phant’sied that the rites of the ancient Pagans, prosecuted as they were in airy temples by naked maidens and prancing butt-boys, and enlivened by feasts and orgies, must have been infinitely more diverting than the insufferable ceremonies of Christians; yet the dramatick yarn of this Phaethon, intoned by Your Reverence, is as dry, tedious, and didactic as the litanies of the Baptists."