‘Long?’ I said. ‘Why, my goodness! you don’t call that Brotherly
Love sermon of yours long, do you?’
‘It takes fully fifty minutes to deliver.’
‘Surely not?’
‘Your incredulity, my dear Wooster, is extremely flattering—far more flattering, of course, than I deserve. Nevertheless, the facts are as I have stated. You are sure that I would not be well advised to make certain excisions and eliminations? You do not think it would be a good thing to cut, to prune? I might, for example, delete the rather exhaustive excursus into the family life of the early Assyrians?’
‘Don’t touch a word of it, or you’ll spoil the whole thing,’ I said earnestly.
‘I am delighted to hear you say so, and I shall preach the sermon without fail next Sunday morning.’
What I have always said, and what I always sh
