“It is a troublesome thing, Halford, this susceptibility to affronts where none are intended.”
“You take insult where none is intended, but if you will find insult where none is meant, then perhaps I should try harder to insult on purpose.”
“Troublesome things tend to remain troublesome no matter how many times you do them.”
“I can see that you spoke in ignorance, and I bitterly regret that I should have been so petty as to take offence where none was intended.”
“Are you to be an individual, a trespasser in territory none else has had the wit or nerve to explore, or just another troublesome mosquito to be swatted by the authorities?”
“Things should go where I intend them to go, not where I tend to put them.”