My father was clearly mimicking Socratic irony, which would start with an innocent " You don't say, " only then to lead his interlocutor onto turbulent shoals.
Here are five things that can show you that your interlocutor, that's a big word that means one who takes part in dialogue or conversation, is insincere with you.
Only as he waxed philosophy and literature and politics, he was sizing his interlocutors up, and he would start a campaign of burglaries at the houses of the Parisian wealthy.