human
What is it?
gpt
I cannot sleep, sir. You recall that, in the tavern yesterday, I confessed myself a poet. The rhymes I have made, sir, are like the sands of the sea for multitude. I was never troubled till I came to Banbury.
human
Then journey forward. There are other towns.
gpt
You do not understand me. Towns to be taken by assault, by any rhymes that offer, do not entice me. It is the hardship of attack that tempts your true soldier. You will grant me that?
human
I’ll grant you anything, Barnaby, so long as you let me sleep on this wet floor. I dreamed I was lying on a feather-bed.
gpt
But the rhyme? You remember how the poem went: ’Here I found a Puritan one, hanging of his cat on a Monday, for killing of a mouse on a Sunday.’ A fine conceit, sir, but I can find no rhyme for _Puritan_ one, as I told you.