"On the Contrary, Madam..."

One of the last things I still read on paper is the The “Quote…Unquote” Newsletter,” edited by Nigel Rees, who hosts the estimable BBC radio show of the same name. Where else could I expect to learn what the Duke of Wellington meant when he ended discussion by saying “Damn it man! The rat is in the bottle!” Rees finds the answer in a footnote to a diary—the diary kept by the artist Benjamin Robert Haydon, commissioned to paint a portrait of the great man:

This not very intelligible expression may refer to an anecdote I have heard of the Duke’s once telling in his later days how the musk rats in India got into bottles, which ever after retained the odour of musk. “Either the rats must be very small,” said a lady, who heard him, “or the bottles very large.” “On the contrary, madam,” was the Duke’s reply, “very small bottles, very large rats.” “That is the style of logic we have to deal with at the War Office,” whispered Lord----“

Brings to mind my favorite Wellington one-liner, which I quote from memory. A proper lady encountered Wellingon the company of a female (sic?) not his wife:

--My Lord the Duke, I am surprised!

--On the contrary, madam, I am surprised. You are astonished.

For more on Rees’ newsletter, including a subscription blank, go here.