Scene: The Mermaid Tavern. Early evening. A loud ringing is heard.
Landlord: Master Shaxper, th'art summoned to the telephone.
Shakespeare: Telephone? What manner of thing be that?
Ben Jonson: Marry, the word doth mean "far speaker". Landlord, what be this "farspeaker"?
Landlord: All I know, gentles, is that a mysterious stranger placed it here yestreen and paid me good gold for it. Now it hath rung, and a voice upon it hath summoned Master Shaxper. That beeth all.
Shakespeare (going to the telephone, picking up the handset and after some fumbling placing it correctly to his ear): What be this nonsense?
Jane Austen: Mister Shakespeare, it is a truth universally acknowledged, that a great English playwright and poet, having conquered those realms, needs must write a novel.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2012-04-04 12:37 am (UTC)Flaubert? Mais non.
Scene: The Mermaid Tavern. Early evening. A loud ringing is heard.
Landlord: Master Shaxper, th'art summoned to the telephone.
Shakespeare: Telephone? What manner of thing be that?
Ben Jonson: Marry, the word doth mean "far speaker". Landlord, what be this "farspeaker"?
Landlord: All I know, gentles, is that a mysterious stranger placed it here yestreen and paid me good gold for it. Now it hath rung, and a voice upon it hath summoned Master Shaxper. That beeth all.
Shakespeare (going to the telephone, picking up the handset and after some fumbling placing it correctly to his ear): What be this nonsense?
Jane Austen: Mister Shakespeare, it is a truth universally acknowledged, that a great English playwright and poet, having conquered those realms, needs must write a novel.
Shakespeare: Who are ye? What d'ye mean?
... At this point my invention runs out.