NAPOLEON. And govern for all; fight for all; be everybody's servant under cover of being everybody's master: Giuseppe.
GIUSEPPE (at the sideboard). Excellency.
NAPOLEON. I forbid you to talk to me about myself.
GIUSEPPE (coming to the foot of the couch). Pardon. Your excellency is so unlike other great men. It is the subject they like best.
NAPOLEON. Well, talk to me about the subject they like next best, whatever that may be.
GIUSEPPE (unabashed). Willingly, your excellency. Has your excellency by any chance caught a glimpse of the lady upstairs?
(Napoleon promptly sits up and looks at him with an interest which entirely justifies the implied epigram.)
NAPOLEON. How old is she?
GIUSEPPE. The right age, excellency.
NAPOLEON. Do you mean seventeen or thirty?