French dramatists find such confusion endlessly engaging, while in life it is merely tiresome. For weeks now, my dear beloved has been pestering me about some imagined, inappropriate connexion between myself and my lovely cousin Winnifred. No matter how often and patiently I explain that we merely enjoy to bathe…

"Be it so, for I submit; his doom is fair,
That dust I am an shall to dust return.
O welcome hour whenever! Why delays
His hand to execute what his decree
Fixed on this day? Why do I overlive?
Why am I mocked with death, and lengthened out
To deathless pain? How gladly would I meet
Mortality, my sentence, and be earth
Insen…

I can assure everyone who was not within earshot of Mr. B's impromptu performance that he posesses a charmingly unexpected falsetto, as clear as a Christmas bell.

Cobblestone Combatant, the Continuation?

Since independence, America has secretly longed for stern, mature British folk to provide them with firm correction, much as the impudent urchin lately fled from home silently longs for the parental thrashings they once endured. It is at once endearing and slightly perverse, I find.

Mr. Waits! I… I must protest your wanton vulgarity-

This is hardly the sort of pluck and invention one has come to expect from the Americas.

Here sir, will you try one of these tidbits? They are made of hog liver.

It is the mark of the uncouth libertine to entertain in one's bedroom, Mr. Connery. I pray you instead hold the event in your drawing room, where all can appreciate the good lady's talent.

There are a dearth of Catholics about, apparently, or the above sentiment would be quite reversed.

Dear Captain Swing,
I am confused, but also intrigued. Is the gentleman some variety of pyromaniac arsonist? Is the cup to be filled with water, held ready to douse oneself should his destructive habit be made manifest?

By denying the opportunity to speak of, "…shamans, of yoga classes, nutritional values, herbal teas, discovering your Boundaries, and Inner Growth," the gentleman has forbade many of my favourite topics, and so squandered all hope of my participation.

Dear Mr. JCrowemancer, thank you so much for noticing! My recent rehabilitative trip to warmer climes has done much to repair my fragile constitution. I now only succumb to the gentle caress of cloying oblivion should I become discomfited by the conversation. Or, I suppose, if I should allow my thoughts to dwell…

I had heard that it has come into vogue to care for one's children and forebears. This snippet seems to provide verification, so I suppose I shall presently release my father from the asylum.

My own imaginations now lead me into hellish climes indeed. Do excuse me for a moment…

Dear Lord in Heaven, that it has come to this. Fortunately, I have enough shame for all the rest of you, so do not trouble yourselves.

Copious amounts of rouge, arsenic powder and, one would surmise, strategically placed canvas padding.

But… but Lord Nelson defeated…. oh yes, you said there can be no debate. The gentleman must be a paragon.

I twit not a whit, sir, but do enjoy to employ my wit to twits.

How sad. Here, sir. A farthing.