more. Proverb: When fish has gone bad ten thousand decent men can't take
away the stink.

MRS. CULVER. Now you're insulting your country. I know you often pretend
your country's the slackest place on earth, but it's only pretence. You
don't really think so. The truth is that inside you you're positively
conceited about your country. You think it's the greatest country that
ever was. And so it is. And yet when your country offers you this honour
you talk about bad fish. I say it's an insult to Great Britain.

CULVER. Great Britain hasn't offered me any title. The fact is that
there are a couple of shrewd fellows up a devil of a tree in Whitehall,
and they're waving a title at me in the hope that I shall come and stand
under the tree so that they can get down by putting their dirty boots on
my shoulders. Well, I'm not going to be a ladder.

MRS. CULVER. I wish you wouldn't try to be funny.

CULVER. I'm not _trying_ to be funny. I _am_ being funny.

MRS. CULVER. You might be serious for once.

CULVER. I am serious. Beneath this amusing and delightful exterior,
there is hidden the most serious, determined, resolute, relentless,
inexorable, immovable man that ever breathed. And let me tell you
something else, my girl--something I haven't mentioned before because of
my nice feelings. What has this title affair got to do with you? What
the dickens has it got to do with you? The title isn't offered as a
reward for _your_ work; it's offered as a reward for _my_ work. _You_
aren't the Controller of Accounts, _I_ happen to be the Controller of