your right, grapho, faldage, seemed to be damning with faint praise

It's OK, de Troy. I won't let it go to my head.

Faldage was not damning with faint praise. But he may have been damning with fulsome praise .. an ingenious inducement to a swelled-head ["if you never write again"] to rest on feigned laurels.

My head is swelled with spirits [so soon after Christmas], de Troy, but not with praise.

In the spirit of the afterglow of the season, I will assume Faldage's motives were unsullied by insincerity.

[Even Malvo caught a break at Christmas-time, and none of my sniping, in any incarnation, has ever been lethal. ]

Sometimes, it is best to let sleeping flatteries lie, de Troy.

When the fight is fought and the dead are buried, there is more to win with honeyed words than with rapier wits.

I commend Faldage his wisdom, if not his sincerity.