– And how will Sir be paying?
– I beg your pardon?
– At the risk of incurring the considerable wrath of my dear grandmother, who would remind me that I must never be required to repeat myself, I must, on this occasion, risking her shouting from her grave, repeat my question. How will Sir be paying?
– You mean you’ve never repeated yourself? I think you have just repeated yourself.
– On the contrary Sir. The first part was a question, the second part a statement, the first instalment of our brief conversation asking you how you might be paying and the second instalment being to merely affirm that as you have had breakfast with us then it is to be assumed therefore, not to put too fine a point on it, that breakfast must be paid for. I might add Sir, that if I had repeated myself, and I’m certain I haven’t, it would have been because you had asked me to.
– What was he question again?
– Ah Sir, you have, as I suspected you might and that I foresaw may play out, asked me to repeat myself, by requesting that I ask again the question, a question that I might add is one of, in this modern day and age, a simple, if not simplistic one. And a warning Sir, here comes the question. And here it now is. How will Sir be paying?
– Are you in a particularly good mood this morning or something?
– Sir, at the risk of my repeating, for the second time, the question that must, if both of us are to continue in our endeavours, be answered. Sir, to answer your question succinctly, directly, expeditiously and without the merest complexity, I am in the most excellent of moods.
– Card then.
– Is Sir informing me of his method of payment or remarking upon my wit?
– Well, as you wanted only to ascertain my method of paying for breakfast and you didn’t really want me to respond to your wit you can safely assume that my reply was in direct response to your requirement to know how I’ll be paying for the aforementioned breakfast.
– I am energised Sir by your entering into the spirit of our conversation, the espirt de corp that we have no doubt generated by our friendly verbal congress, I would fall short of calling it a pantomime, even if it has somewhat delayed other activities that we should both be getting on with.
– I’ve got all day.
– I gathered that Sir. Now, your card?