Masterstrokes.)

BEAUFOY: (Drawls.) No, you aren’t. Not by a long shot if I know it. I don’t see it, that’s all. No born gentleman, no-one with the most rudimentary promptings of a gentleman would stoop to such particularly loathsome conduct. One of those, my lord. A plagiarist. A soapy sneak masquerading as a literateur. It’s perfectly obvious that with the most inherent baseness he has cribbed some of my bestselling copy, really gorgeous stuff, a perfect gem, the love passages in which are beneath suspicion.

The Beaufoy books of love and great possessions, with which your lordship is doubtless familiar, are a household word throughout the kingdom.

BLOOM: (Murmurs with hangdog meekness glum.) That bit about