You write?” “Why, all the time,” said Locke, “except of course when I’m wrong.

You’re a lever and a fulcrum, you two, looking for a city to turn upside down.

That’s a sweet piece,” said Jean, briefly forgetting to be aggravated. “You didn’t snatch that off a street.” “No,” said Locke, before taking another deep draught of the warm water in the decanter. “I got it from the neck of the governor’s mistress.” “You can’t be serious.” “In the governor’s manor.” “Of all the – ” “In the governor’s bed.” “Damned lunatic!” “With the governor sleeping next to her.

But this is silly – we could sit here all night contrasting cock-lengths. I say mine is five feet long, you say yours is six, and shoots fire upon command.

I mean, wouldn’t it be grand, to have a legend that grew while you were alive to enjoy it? To sit in a tavern and hear all the people around you speaking of what you’d done, with no notion that you were among them as flesh and blood?

He lay there shaking in the light of the red lamps, in a silent hall, alone with his triumph, unable to move and bleeding to death.

In time, you’ll come to understand that a state like ours cannot afford to offer up a show of weakness for honesty’s sake.

Sad day, my loves, a proper tragedy. But when the milk’s gone bad you might as well look forward to cheese, hmm?

It is possible,” said Locke with a sheepish grin, “that I have been slightly too bold.

I’m no one you want to learn from.