William Gladstone once observed that Benjamin Disraeli enjoyed an enviable reputation of being able to make a joke on any subject. Disraeli replied that it was indeed quite possible. "Then I challenge you," Gladstone said. "Make a joke about Queen Victoria."
"Sir," Disraeli replied. "Her Majesty is not a subject."
[Victoria's verdict of a 1898 meeting with Gladstone? "He addresses me as if I was a public meeting."]
[Gladstone was something of a cold fish. "Mr Gladstone read Homer for fun," Churchill once remarked, "which I thought served him right."]
Sources
Willard R. Espy, Another Almanac of Words at Play
