"We must have several word-signs," said Syme seriously — "words that we are likely to want, fine shades of meaning. My favourite word is 'coeval.' What's yours?"
"Do stop playing the goat," said the Professor plaintively. "You don't know how serious this is."
"'Lush,' too, " said Syme, shaking his head sagaciously, "we must have ' lush' — word applied to grass, don't you know?"
"Do you imagine," asked the Professor furiously, "that we are going to talk to Dr. Bull about grass?"
"There are several ways in which the subject could be approached," said Syme reflectively, "and the word introduced without appearing forced. We might say, ' Dr. Bull, as a revolutionist, you remember that a tyrant once advised us to eat grass; and indeed many of us, looking on the fresh lush grass of summer — "'
"Do you understand," said the other, "that this is a tragedy?"
"Perfectly," replied Syme; "always be comic in a tragedy. What the deuce else can you do? I wish this language of yours had a wider scope. I suppose we could not extend it from the fingers to the toes? That would involve pulling off our boots and socks during the conversation, which however unobtrusively performed — "
"Syme," said his friend with a stern simplicity, "go to bed!"

"It is you who are unpoetical," replied the poet Syme. "If what you say of clerks is true, they can only be as prosaic as your poetry. The rare, strange thing is to hit the mark; the gross, obvious thing is to miss it. We feel it is epical when man with one wild arrow strikes a distant bird. Is it not also epical when man with one wild engine strikes a distant station? Chaos is dull; because in chaos the train might indeed go anywhere, to Baker Street or to Bagdad. But man is a magician, and his whole magic is in this, that he does say Victoria, and lo! it is Victoria. No, take your books of mere poetry and prose; let me read a time table, with tears of pride. Take your Byron, who commemorates the defeats of man; give me Bradshaw, who commemorates his victories. Give me Bradshaw, I say!"

When a man really tells the truth, the first truth he tells is that he himself is a liar.