"Pardon, monsieur, said Villefaramir. "I see you are a philosophe, and not merely a captain of industry. It is not usual among us for one who has obtained great wealth by mysterious means - not that I question, I only repeat - to lose their time in philosophical rêveries, made at most to console those whom destiny has disinherited of earthly goods."
"Monsieur, do you never exercise your regard to see at once upon what kind of man it is fallen? Should not a magistrate be, not only the best interpreter of the law, not only the most cunning refuter of the lies of Morgot, but able to wrestle with his adversary in thought, as if possessed of a palantir, and to penetrate the mind deeper than the dwarves penetrated Morie, and awakened the balrogue from a slumber induced by dissipation?"
"Then, you yourself?"
"I, I am one of those exceptional beings whose power is such that none can foresee its fall while the world lasts. You believe me a Dunédain, n'est-ce pas, because I speak the Parler commun with the same facility and purity as you. Gali, my Haradric slave, believes me a Haradrin; Shélobe, my spider, believes me an arachnid; Roguccio, my intendant, believes me a balrogue. Do you not then understand that no living man can hinder me? For I am the Wit, the Ring-maker, the Count of Many Colours!"
