“Do you not be vexed unduly if you can find no meaning in this paragraph—”
“—Which has not anything to do with my exalted duties in this world—”
“This paragraph was placed here simply because there happened to be a vacancy which needed filling—”
“But I am not a paragraph, ma’am! I am no less a person, I may tell you in confidence, than Fair-haired Hoo, the Helper and Preserver, the Lord of the Third Truth, the Well-beloved of Heavenly Ones, upon a journey,—quite incognito, and therefore unattended by my customary retinue,—toward my appointed kingdom. And I confess that to my divine mind your writing has not any valid significance—”
“The foolish, therefore, will find in it foolishness, and will say ‘Bother!’—”
“—And conveys no valuable lesson—”
“The wise, as wisdom goes, will reflect that this paragraph was placed here without its consent being asked; that no wit nor large significance was loaned it by its creator; and that it will be forgotten with the turning of the one page wherein it figures unimportantly—”
“Quite honestly, ma’am, I am not a paragraph! No, I assure you that I really am the Lord of the Third Truth, upon my way to rule over Antan. I am the predestined conqueror who will force that irreligious Master Philologist to refrain from any further evil-doing, and to turn over a new leaf—”
“Do you turn the page forthwith, in just the care-free fashion of old nodding Time as he skims over the long book of life—”
“Yes, yes!” said Gerald, smiling, “I was thinking you could bring in that bit, neatly enough, if I gave you the simile to start on. And I know, of course, how all you authoresses love to quote your own works. So now, ma’am, if I were to remark, in a half puzzled way, that I hardly know what to say about your irrational paragraph—”