Small talk

[T]o the credit of the lady it may be added, that […] without any of the arts of flattery or the gaieties of small talk, he began to be agreeable to her.

If he had a fault as a conversationalist, it was a certain tendency to monotony, a certain lack of sparkle and variety in his small-talk.

Yet for so public a figure, Jackson was socially awkward, inept at small talk and terrified when the distant audience became an adoring mob.