This quote is long but quite funny if you take the time to read it- it is a conversation that occurs in the fourth Ranger's Apprentice book between Halt, a ranger, and Horace, a warrior apprentice. It is slightly shortened from the original but copied from the book. It took me 26 minutes to type.
Horace digested that piece of information for a moment or two. Then Halt saw his shoulders rise to an intake of breath and knew that the movement pressaged yet another question. He closed his eyes, remembering a time that seemed years ago when he was alone and when life was not an endless series of questions.
Then he admitted to himself that, strangely, he preffered things the way they were now. However, he must have made some unintentional noise as he awaited the question, for he noticed that Horace had sealed his lips firmly and determinedly. Obviously, Horace had sensed the reaction and had decided that he would not bother Halt with another question. Not yet anyway.
Which left Halt in a strange quandary. Because now that the question was unasked he could help wondering what it could have been. All of a sudden there was a nagging incompletion about the morning. He tried to ignore the feeling but it would not be pushed aside. And for once Horace seemed to have conquered his almost irresistable need to ask the question that occurred to him.
Finally the Ranger could bear it no longer.
"What?"
The question seemed to explode out of him, with a greater degree of violence than he had intended.
Horace turned an agrrieved look on his mentor.
"What?" he asked Halt, and the smaller man made a gesture of exasperation.
"Thats what I want to know,
what?"
Horace peered at him. The look was all too obviously the look you give to someone who seems to have taken leave of his senses. It did little to improve Halt's rapidly rising temper.
"What?" said Horace, now totally puzzled.
"Don't keep parroting at me!" Halt fumed. "Stop repeating what I say! I asked you "what", so don't ask me "what" back, understand?"
Horace considered the question for a second or two, then, in his deliberate way, he replied: "No."
"What 'what' are you asking me?" he said. Then, thinking how to make his question clearer he added, "Or to put it another way, why are you asking me 'what'?"
Controlling himself with enormous restraint, and making no secret of the face, Halt said, very precisely: "You were about to ask a question."
Horace frowned, "I was?"
Halt nodded, "You were. I saw you take a breath to ask it."
"I see," said Horace, "And what was it about?"
For just a second or two Halt was speechless. He opened his mouth, closed it again, then finally found the strength to speak.
"That is what I was asking you," he said, "When I said 'what' I was asking you what you were about to ask me."
"I wasn't about to ask you 'what'." Horace replied.
"Then what, if I may used that word once more, where you about to ask me?"
Horace drew a deep breath once more, then hesitated. "I forgot," he said, "What were we talking about?"
And I'm guessing I'll love the first one, but I haven't read that far in the series yet.
