ZOO.  You are certainly a true Briton.

THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN.  I am proud of it.  But in your mouth I feel that the compliment hides some insult; so I do not thank you for it.

ZOO.  All I meant was that though Britons sometimes say quite clever things and deep things as well as silly and shallow things, they always forget them ten minutes after they have uttered them.

THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN.  Leave it at that, madam:  leave it at that. [He sits down again].  Even a Pope is not expected to be continually pontificating.  Our flashes of inspiration shew that our hearts are in the right place.

ZOO.  Of course.  You cannot keep your heart in any place but the right place.

THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN.  Tcha!

ZOO.  But you can keep your hands in the wrong place.  In your neighbor’s pockets, for example.  So, you see, it is your hands that really matter.

THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [exhausted] Well, a woman must have the last word.  I will not dispute it with you.

ZOO.  Good.  Now let us go back to the really interesting subject of our discussion.  You remember?  The slavery of the shortlived to images and metaphors.

THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [aghast] Do you mean to say, madam, that after having talked my head off, and reduced me to despair and silence by your intolerable loquacity, you actually propose to begin all over again?  I shall leave you at once.

ZOO.  You must not.  I am your nurse; and you must stay with me.

THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN.  I absolutely decline to do anything of the sort [he rises and walks away with marked dignity].

ZOO [using her tuning-fork] Zoo on Burrin Pier to Oracle Police at Ennistymon have you got me?...  What?...  I am picking you up now but you are flat to my pitch....  Just a shade sharper....  That’s better:  still a little more....  Got you:  right.  Isolate Burrin Pier quick.

THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [is heard to yell] Oh!

ZOO [still intoning] Thanks....  Oh nothing serious I am nursing a shortliver and the silly creature has run away he has discouraged himself very badly by gadding about and talking to secondaries and I must keep him strictly to heel.

The Elderly Gentleman returns, indignant.

ZOO.  Here he is you can release the Pier thanks.  Goodbye. [She puts up her tuning-fork].

THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN.  This is outrageous.  When I tried to step off the pier on to the road, I received a shock, followed by an attack of pins and needles which ceased only when I stepped back on to the stones.

ZOO.  Yes:  there is an electric hedge there.  It is a very old and very crude method of keeping animals from straying.

THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN.  We are perfectly familiar with it in Baghdad, madam; but I little thought I should live to have it ignominiously applied to myself.  You have actually Kiplingized me.