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  ...the highest rank a citizen can attain! POOH. It is. Our logical Mikado, seeing no moral difference between the dignified judge who condemns a criminal to die, and the industrious mechanic who carries out the sentence, has rolled the two offices into one, and every judge is now his own executioner. NANK. But how good of you (for I see that you are a nobleman of the highest rank) to condescend to tell all this to me, a mere strolling minstrel! POOH. Don't mention it. I am, in point of fact, a particularly haughty and exclusive person, of pre-Adamite ancestral descent. You will understand this when I tell you that I can trace my ancestry back to a protoplasmal primordial atomic globule.   Consequently, my family pride is something inconceivable. I can't help it. I was born sneering. But I struggle hard to overcome this defect. I mortify my pride continually. When all the great officers of State resigned in a body because they were too proud to serve under an ex-tailor, did I not unhesitatingly accept all their posts at once? PISH. And the salaries attached to them? You did. POOH. It is consequently my degrading duty to serve this upstart as First Lord...   Gilbert, W. S.

Excerpt from The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan · This quote is tagged Ancestry · Search on Google Books to find all references and sources for this quotation.

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