JUNO [rising] Do you suppose I'll allow this?
MRS. JUNO. You've admitted that you've done wrong, Tops. What's the use of your allowing or not allowing after that?
JUNO. I do not admit that I have done wrong. I admit that what I did was wrong.
GREGORY. Can you explain the distinction?
JUNO. It's quite plain to anyone but an imbecile. If you tell me I've done something wrong you insult me. But if you say that something that I did is wrong you simply raise a question of morals. I tell you flatly if you say I did anything wrong you will have to fight me. In fact I think we ought to fight anyhow. I don't particularly want to; but I feel that England expects us to.
GREGORY. I won't fight. If you beat me my wife would share my humiliation. If I beat you, she would sympathize with you and loathe me for my brutality.
MRS. LUNN. Not to mention that as we are human beings and not reindeer or barndoor fowl, if two men presumed to fight for us we couldn't decently ever speak to either of them again.
GREGORY. Besides, neither of us could beat the other, as we neither of us know how to fight. We should only blacken each other's eyes and make fools of ourselves.
JUNO. I don't admit that. Every Englishman can use his fists.
GREGORY. You're an Englishman. Can you use yours?