Blakes 71978

[ex-President Sarkoff thinks Blake is an assassin]

Blake:
I said, I'm not a murderer.

President Sarkoff:
I'm grateful for your semantic precision. Political assassination I can... live with. To be murdered would the final, sordid indignity.

[Sarkoff picks up an antique pistol]

President Sarkoff:
Now, my educated friend, do you know what this is?

Blake:
Uh, it's a projectile weapon.

President Sarkoff:
[pointing the gun at Blake] It's called a revolver. Explosive charge here, projectile emerges with great force and considerable accuracy, over short distances anyway. Primitive, but efficient enough for my purposes.

Blake:
[urgently] President Sarkoff, I must speak with you! Will you listen to what I have to...

[Sarkoff pulls the trigger, knowing the gun is empty]

President Sarkoff:
[lowering the gun] Ex-president.

Blake:
I haven't got time for the niceties of this game that you're playing.

President Sarkoff:
Just time for a hasty rationalization.

Blake:
I just want you to listen.

President Sarkoff:
I've wasted my life listening, listening to people who are arrogant, or vacuous, or just plain vicious. I smiled and acquiesced in the face of prejudice and stupidity. I've tolerated mediocrity and accepted the tyranny of second-class minds. But now all that is over. I am ready to die, here among the things I value. I am ready to let you kill me but I am not ready to listen to you justify the act.