ZOO. Then you give up the idea of progress? You cry off the torch, and the brick, and the acorn, and all the rest of it?
THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. I do nothing of the sort. I stand for progress and for freedom broadening down from precedent to precedent.
ZOO. You are certainly a true Briton.
THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. I am proud of it. But in your mouth I feel that the compliment hides some insult; so I do not thank you for it.
ZOO. All I meant was that though Britons sometimes say quite clever things and deep things as well as silly and shallow things, they always forget them ten minutes after they have uttered them.
THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Leave it at that, madam: leave it at that. [He sits down again]. Even a Pope is not expected to be continually pontificating. Our flashes of inspiration shew that our hearts are in the right place.
ZOO. Of course. You cannot keep your heart in any place but the right place.
THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Tcha!
ZOO. But you can keep your hands in the wrong place. In your neighbor's pockets, for example. So, you see, it is your hands that really matter.
THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [exhausted] Well, a woman must have the last word. I will not dispute it with you.