In the Bar at the Pride and Prejudice

'A marvel, Piglet. The only word for it.'

'So you keep saying.'

'Every line she writes is a delight. And what an achievement. Two-hundred-and-fifty years old! The world's foremost novelist and a pioneer of cryogenics to boot.'

'I don't think the lady is actually - '

'My favourite of hers - oh, couldn't live without it. Those five high-spirited girls and their droll father. Feckless, too, mind. Drives his wife up the wall. Why she keeps yelling his name: "Gordon Bennett", gasps she, exasperationally. But then that newcomer takes a shine to the eldest. 'Course, we never know his name, just that he works for the Bradford and Bingley.'

'I think his name is in fact Bing - '

'Then that vicar chap sets his cassock at the witty one…he's the bloke with the patroness who always dresses in red in honour of her nephew, Chris de Burgh, and his big hit.'

'I don't think you've - '

'Not that the vicar bloke gets very far with Miss Witty. Loves ice-skating, she does, by the way: 'Next slide please' - magical catchphrase. Anyway, apart from all else, the vicar can't string a sentence together, on account of spending most nights in the bar of the Pride and Prejudice face-down in a tub of Tom Collins.'

'Pooh, you'll find that the vicar's name is Col - '

'So this other lairy lad homes in on the witty one. Wickham…not his proper name, apparently…what they nickname him for his rather forthright modus oprahwinfrey in respect of the ladies, which is a tad racy for 1813 but, you know, Miss Austen, trailblazer.'

'Wickham, Pooh, is the one who ends up with - '

'His nose right out of joint, Piglet, 'cos the witty one is drawn ineluctably, as it were with faery threads, to Mr Darty, the Regency's very own Luke Littler.'

'You might want to have a closer - '

'Not that it's smooth sailing. Miss Austen is too much of a genius for that. No, Darty has to unendisdetangle himself from a tender yet ill-starred understanding with a female coach at a revolutionary Gothic-themed soccer academy for intermittently distressed gentlefolk.'

'Pooh, soccer wasn't even - '

'Yes, sad but true, poor Miss Catherine Morland of Goalhanger Abbey must perforce be disabused, gadzooks, i'faith, pro tem. But worry not, she subsequently finds enduring love with a certain Edward Ferrier, whose mum, in the parlance of the times, has a nifty set of pipes on her and gives a heart-melting rendition of "Blow the Wind Southerly" when they ply their troughs.'

'It's actually plight - '

'Exactly! The condition of anyone who doesn't swoon over our dear Jane, as we, her closest inmates, call her. You should read her, Piglet.'

'I quite like George Eliot.'

'What, the minor character who loses to Darty on that bitter snowswept e'en at the Ally Pally? Dear oh dear, Piglet, you're missing the bigger picture.'

'And you're missing - '

'What?'

'Er - tea.'

'Good grief! Skates on!'