ZOO [_resuming her seat on the sacks_] But what was all the rest of that
long name for? There was a lot more of it. Blops Booby or something.

THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_impressively_] Bolge Bluebin, madam: a
historical name. Let me inform you that I can trace my family back for
more than a thousand years, from the Eastern Empire to its ancient seat
in these islands, to a time when two of my ancestors, Joyce Bolge
and Hengist Horsa Bluebin, wrestled with one another for the prime
ministership of the British Empire, and occupied that position
successively with a glory of which we can in these degenerate days form
but a faint conception. When I think of these mighty men, lions in war,
sages in peace, not babblers and charlatans like the pigmies who now
occupy their places in Baghdad, but strong silent men, ruling an empire
on which the sun never set, my eyes fill with tears: my heart bursts
with emotion: I feel that to have lived but to the dawn of manhood in
their day, and then died for them, would have been a nobler and happier
lot than the ignominious ease of my present longevity.

ZOO. Longevity! [_she laughs_].

THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Yes, madam, relative longevity. As it is, I have
to be content and proud to know that I am descended from both those
heroes.

ZOO. You must be descended from every Briton who was alive in their
time. Dont you know that?

THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Do not quibble, madam. I bear their names, Bolge
and Bluebin; and I hope I have inherited something of their majestic