"I am sure I was very sorry to hear about your salmon nets----"
"Nets! Nets! Good heavens, Madge!--I never said a word about nets the whole time. I'm not a cot-man. Look here: you know it's only a few of the greatest minds that can attend to two things at the one time. You can't give your soul to fish and yet devote yourself to cows at the one moment, except you are a person like Julius Cæsar. He could dictate and write completely different things at the one time."
"Could he? He must have been very clever."
"Will you give up the cow? I want to talk of another beast."
"Trout?"
"No, not trout. Trout isn't a beast. If you're clever and smart, and that kind of thing, I won't talk about my beast."
"What is your beast?"
"A fool."
"Oh!"
"Are you not curious to know who the fool is?"