Gargoyles

“I wanted to compare the play,” my father said, “with a play I once saw in Oxford, and to discuss the qualities of English actors versus the qualities of our actors, as well as the difference between the English language and ours.”

The prince said: “Naturally I was completely obsessed with the flood, but your father was just as naturally not obsessed with the play.”

“When we talked about the play,” my father said, “you, Prince, kept exclaiming What expense! or Enormous expense! while I, whenever we talked about the flood, was constantly using such words as stage machinery, pantomime, dramatic climax, puppetry.”

“But basically,” the prince said, “no matter what we talked about on that day, we were really talking about nothing but the flood.”