The Shooting Party

[an animal rights protester has just disrupted the shooting]

Sir Randolph Nettleby:
This is a very well produced pamphlet. Where do you get a thing like this printed? Is it expensive? You don't mind my asking you?

Cornelius Cardew:
Oh no, not at all. I know a very good printer in Dorking, just near where I live. An excellent man of anarchistic views. He gives me very good rates.

Sir Randolph:
Ah, special terms. Hmm. He wouldn't give me such good ones, I suppose.

Cardew:
Are you a pamphleteer too, sir?

Sir Randolph:
Well, I was thinking of making a sort of foray in that direction.

Cardew:
A polemic, would you say?

Sir Randolph:
Yes, I think that's the right word.

Cardew:
Would you call it a *diatribe*?

Sir Randolph:
Yes, I [chuckle] could call it a diatribe.

Cardew:
The Ruin of Rural England - A Diatribe

Sir Randolph:
Precisely. I don't think we should continue our discussion here... my fellow murderers are rather hot blooded.

Count Tibor Rakassyi:
[Aloud to all at the table] Do you hear that, duck? [Rhetorically to the duck] If you're out there on the last day flying over me, I can tell you, you haven't a hope. Bang, bang, and it will all be over! [laughter from the diners]

Osbert Nettleby:
If you kill her, I will kill you!

Ellen:
[Shocked] Osbert!

Count Tibor Rakassyi:
Oh, you will, will you? How do you propose to do that, may I ask?

Osbert Nettleby:
I will kill you by prayer. [Additional laughter from dinner guests]

Lady Aline Hartlip:
Why are you smiling?

Sir Randolph Nettleby:
[Introspectively] I can't imagine... except that... sometimes when my thoughts about the future are particularly gloomy, I find myself feeling more and more light-hearted.

Lady Minnie Nettleby:
[to Lady Hartlip] I've always thought your taste in men more Ibsenite than Chekhovian.

Lord Gilbert Hartlip:
[to Lady Hartlip] It's quite usual for men to have distractions that don't affect their wives.

Sir Randolph Nettleby:
[Understatingly] You don't approve of our sport, I fear.

Cornelius Cardew:
It's not my idea of sport! It's my idea of murder!

Lord Bob Lilburn:
If the land-owning class goes, everything goes!

Osbert Nettleby:
I will kill you with prayer.

Sir Randolph Nettleby:
It's not a bad idea to get into the habit of writing down one's thoughts. Saves one having to bother other people with them.

Sir Randolph Nettleby:
You weren't shooting like a gentleman! [to Lord Hartlip after he had accidentally shot the beater Tom Harker]