"If he had but a little more brains," she thought to herself, "I might make something of him"; but she never let him perceive the opinion she had of him; listened with indefatigable complacency to his stories of the stable and the mess; laughed at all his jokes; felt the greatest interest in Jack Spatterdash, whose cab-horse had come down, and Bob Martingale, who had been taken up in a gambling-house, and Tom Cinqbars, who was going to ride the steeplechase. 
"If he had but a little more brains," she thought to herself, "I might make something of him;" but she never let him perceive her opinion. She listened tirelessly to his stories of the stable and the mess; laughed at all his jokes, and showed the greatest interest in his raffish friends. 