‘It’s too human.’
‘I thought you’d be amused.’
‘It takes a great deal to make me laugh.’
‘Are you afraid people will discover your secret?’
‘I think you’re rash.’
‘I’m not. I’m calculating. Arrived where you are, you could sit all day on a churchyard wall yelling your secret in people’s ears, and they would pay no attention to it.’
‘Unless an honest man came by, or a clever one.’
‘An honest man wouldn’t be clever enough to hear it, and a clever one wouldn’t be honest enough to repeat it.’
‘Don’t endanger a joke for the sake of a ... an epigram.’
‘Do you know, Prince, I have a sort of presentiment our joke will never come off.’