In the lone novel of his career, The Picture of Dorian Gray, the goading Lord Henry cannot seem to help himself from delivering bon mot after bon mot. Word-play and paradoxical summation was a compulsion for [Oscar] Wilde.

Leave me alone for once, she said angrily.

Charlemagne called April the Easter month, because it is the month in which Easter usually falls.

How? Didn't I cap for you, an' square you with the examinin' board? Didn't I stake you to the three hundred dollars?