With All Due Respect
敬意を込めて申し上げますが
The subcommittee, having been formed to resolve a single word, met the following Thursday and resolved instead to double it.
"With all due respect," began Mr Binks, a phrase he deployed the way other men artillery.
"While I to no one in my admiration for Mrs Crumb's generosity, I must gently observe that generosity is not spelling."
"Granted that you have sat here since the Coronation," replied Mrs Crumb sweetly, "one does wonder which coronation you mean."
The temperature in the parish hall, never tropical, dropped several degrees.
Miss Featherstone, presiding, folded her hands in the manner of a referee who fully intends to enjoy the fight.
"Let us," she said, "keep this civil."
Everyone assured her that they would, which is how everyone present knew that they would not.
"I merely suggest," Binks continued, "with no wish to reopen old wounds, that we consult the parish register."
The old wounds in question were seventeen years old and had never, at any point, been closed.
"By all means, let us consult the register," said Mrs Crumb, "granted that you can still read it without the glasses you appear to have mislaid along with your manners."
"Point of information," murmured Mr Thorne, who had learned that the phrase made him sound useful.
Nobody offered him any information, and he settled back, satisfied.
"While I hesitate to complicate matters," said Deirdre, hesitating not at all, "the register lists him as Alfred Albert Pockle."
This was greeted with the horror usually reserved for structural cracks in the church tower.
"Both names," whispered Mrs Crumb.
"Both names," confirmed Binks, as though pronouncing a sentence.
"Then the solution," said Miss Featherstone brightly, "is surely to use both."
"With respect, Chair, a plaque is not a telephone directory," said Binks.
"And with equal respect, Mr Binks, nor is it your private ," returned Mrs Crumb.
It was generally felt that a great deal of respect was being exchanged, and remarkably little of it was genuine.
Miss Featherstone raised a hand, and the room fell obediently silent, as rooms tended to do for her.
"I propose," she said, "that we defer the question of the name and settle first upon the font."
This was received as a masterstroke of statesmanship, chiefly because it postponed the argument by a fortnight.
"While the font is agreed," said Binks, agreeing to nothing, "I reserve my position on the name."
"Reserve away," said Mrs Crumb, "you have reserved everything else in this parish, including judgement."
And on that note of , the subcommittee adjourned, having achieved the rare of making the problem larger while touching none of it.
Outside, the donated bench sat empty on the green, blissfully unaware of the storm gathering around its brass.