- Sir Humphrey Appleby: Prime Minister, I must protest in the strongest possible terms my profound opposition to a newly instituted practice which imposes severe and intolerable restrictions upon the ingress and egress of senior members of the hierarchy and which will, in all probability, should the current deplorable innovation be perpetuated, precipitate a constriction of the channels of communication, and culminate in a condition of organisational atrophy and administrative paralysis which will render effectively impossible the coherent and co-ordinated discharge of the function of government within Her Majesty's United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
- Jim Hacker: You mean you've lost your key?
- Jim Hacker: But if, as you say, he's not overstretched.
- Sir Frank Gordon: Ah, when I say not overstretched, I was of course talking in a sense of total cumulative loading taken globally, rather than in respect of certain individual and essentially anomalous responsibilities which are not, logically speaking, consonant or harmonious with the broad spectrum of intermeshing and inseparable functions, and could indeed be said to place an excessive and supererogatory burden on the office, where considered in relation to the comparatively exiguous advantages of their overall centralisation.
- Jim Hacker: You *could* do part of Humphrey's job!
- Bernard Woolley: As they say, it's a custom more honoured in the breach than in the observance.
- Jim Hacker: Oh really, Bernard, must you and Humphrey really always express yourself in this roundabout and pompous way? "More honoured in the breach than the observance"! Must you always distort and destroy the most beautiful language in the world - the language of Shakespeare?
- Bernard Woolley: That *is* Shakespeare, Prime Minister.
- [the PM is considering taking the joint headship of the civil service away from Humphrey and making Frank the full head]
- Sir Humphrey Appleby: Oh, Frank.
- Sir Frank Gordon: Yes?
- Sir Humphrey Appleby: Good meeting with the PM?
- Sir Frank Gordon: Yes, very good.
- Sir Humphrey Appleby: Good. Any particular subject come up?
- Sir Frank Gordon: Any particular subject you're interested in?
- Sir Humphrey Appleby: No, not particularly. He didn't raise the issue of service appointments and so on?
- Sir Frank Gordon: It may have cropped up.
- Sir Humphrey Appleby: Did he foreshadow any redistribution of responsibility?
- Sir Frank Gordon: Shall we say it was a wide-ranging discussion.
- Sir Humphrey Appleby: Did it move towards any conclusion?
- Sir Frank Gordon: There were arguments on both sides.
- Sir Humphrey Appleby: Evenly balanced?
- Sir Frank Gordon: Perhaps tending slightly more one way than the other.
- Sir Humphrey Appleby: But nothing to worry about?
- Sir Frank Gordon: Nothing for *me* to worry about. See you this afternoon.
- Jim Hacker: [the Prime Minister attempts to repeat Humphrey's explaination to Dorothy] Well, because if people came to see people who people didn't know people were coming... that is, if people saw people coming before people saw them seeing people, people would see people. The whole ship would go off the rails. You see.
- Dorothy Wainwright: Did you work all that out for yourself?
- Jim Hacker: People can wait in the lobby. Or in the state rooms.
- Sir Humphrey Appleby: Some people. But some people must wait where other people cannot see the people who are waiting. And people who arrive before other people must wait where they cannot see the people who arrive after them being admitted before them. And people who come in from outside must wait where they cannot see the people from inside coming in to tell you what the people from outside have come to see you about. And people who arrive when you are with people they are not supposed to know you have seen must wait somewhere until the people who are not supposed to have seen you have seen you.
- Jim Hacker: But me no buts, Bernard. Shakespeare.
- Bernard Woolley: Oh no, Prime Minister. "But me no buts" is circa 1820. Mrs Centlivre used the phrase in 1708, but actually it was Scott's employment of it in 'The Antiquary' in 1816 which made it fashionable.
- Jim Hacker: Shall we keep to the point please, Bernard?
- Jim Hacker: Bernard, I want you to put Dorothy back into her old office.
- Bernard Woolley: You mean, carry her there?
- Jim Hacker: Bernard, I really don't want Humphrey putting his head round the door during this meeting.
- Bernard Woolley: Well, I'll do my best, Prime Minister.
- Jim Hacker: That may not be good enough, Bernard. Dorothy tells me that technically Humphrey's supposed to phone you from the cabinet office before he comes through to Number Ten; is that true?
- Bernard Woolley: Well, perhaps in theory, but it's really just a formality.
- Jim Hacker: Good. Humphrey likes formality.
- Dorothy Wainwright: I used to be in the office next door to this room, didn't I? You had me moved to the front of the building, up three floors, along the corridor, down two steps, round the corner and four doors along to the right. Next to the photocopier.
- Jim Hacker: Dorothy. I've hardly seen you since I moved in.
- Dorothy Wainwright: Well, I used to be in the office next door to this office, didn't I? You had me moved to the front of the building, up three floors, along the corridor, down two steps, around the corner, and four doors along to the right, next to the photocopier.
- Jim Hacker: I thought you'd gone on holiday or something.
- Dorothy Wainwright: I might as well be. I came back from my weekend and found my office turned into a waiting room, for cabinet ministers officials, and so on. Humphrey said it was on your instructions. Was it?
- Jim Hacker: No--well, yes, uh... no--yes. You see, Humphrey came to me with this plan for rationalization, to make use of the space.
- Dorothy Wainwright: Don't you realize the Civil Service have been trying to get me out of that office for three years?
- Jim Hacker: No, why?
- Dorothy Wainwright: Because, geographically, it's in the key strategic position. It's the best placed room in the house.
- Jim Hacker: I don't see what difference it makes.
- Dorothy Wainwright: [indicating different objects of the table] Look... this file is the cabinet room where we are now. Through the doors is your private office. This ruler is the corridor to the front door, here, and this corridor runs from the cabinet room and connects up to the locked green baize door, on the other side of which is the cabinet office, where Humphrey works. This coffee cup is the staircase up to your study, and this saucer is this gents' loo. And this is--was my office, and my desk faced out into the lobby and I always kept my door open. What could I see?
- Jim Hacker: Well, you can see everyone who comes in through the front door, or from the cabinet office, or the cabinet room or the private office, or up the staircase. Hmm...
- Dorothy Wainwright: And I was opposite the gents' loo. I have to be opposite the loo!
- Jim Hacker: Have you seen anyone about this?
- Dorothy Wainwright: The gents' loo. Almost everyone in the cabinet is a man. I could hear everything they said to each other privately when the popped out of cabinet meetings for a pee. I was able to keep the last Prime Minister fully informed about all their little - foibles.
- Jim Hacker: Was it any of his business?
- Dorothy Wainwright: When they were plotting against him, yes.
- Jim Hacker: Ah.