A reader, a lover of The New Criterion, offers the following with affectionate respect. These are, the reader claims, conversation snippets overheard at TNC’s end-season dinner.

“George Will is here?… What an unkempt ruffian.”

“No, no, There was an incorrect usage of the pluperfect subjunctive in that translation of Cicero’s 3rd Philippic.”

“Rembrandt was too postmodern for my taste.”

“This red hints at a faint melange of Kenyan wheat grass, gunpowder, Nicaraguan jungle vine nectar and truffles… The vintner may have been distracted during the aging process.”

“Will you be our fourth for rackets tomorrow?”