A classic clever insult. Usually attributed to the Earl of Sandwich and John Wilkes.
That was actually Groundskeeper Willie, wasn’t it?
You need to know that G.K. Chesterton was quite plump, absent-minded, and traveled a lot more than his wife wanted him to. From Wiki:
*P. G. Wodehouse once described a very loud crash as “a sound like Chesterton falling onto a sheet of tin”…
Chesterton… had a tendency to forget where he was supposed to be going and miss the train that was supposed to take him there. It is reported that on several occasions he sent a telegram to his wife Frances from some distant (and incorrect) location, writing such things as “Am in Market Harborough. Where ought I to be?” to which she would reply, “Home.”*
“I’ve never wished a man dead, but I’ve read some obituaries with a great deal of satisfaction.” - attrib. to Clarence Darrow
“The difference between the right word and the wrong word is the difference between a lightning bolt and a lightning bug.” - attrib. to Mark Twain
“He had the calm confidence of a Christian with four aces.” - Twain
Lincoln, when accused of being two-faced: “If I had two faces, do you think I’d be wearing this one?”
When I was working in the child support establishment division of our county prosecutor’s office, I was told the immortal story of Sharon. Sharon was a prosecutor who was speaking to the mom of an alleged deadbeat dad. The mom said, “You can’t hold my son responsible for getting that girl pregnant. He’s so good-looking, girls just flock to him!” Sharon said, deadpan, “Ma’am, that’s not a valid legal defense to paternity. And even if it were, it wouldn’t apply to your son.”
Ben Franklin, the story goes, was at a fancy Paris banquet not long after the American Revolution. The British ambassador stood and toasted King George III who, “like the Sun, illuminates the whole world and brings joy and gladness to all.” The French ambassador stood and toasted King Louis XVI, “who, like the Moon, brings us light and beauty even in the darkest night.” Franklin smiled, stood and toasted George Washington, “who, like Joshua of old, commanded the Sun and the Moon to be still… and they obeyed him.”
George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill (IIRC): “Here are two tickets to opening night of my next play. Bring a friend, if you have one.”
Churchill: “I’m busy that night. I’ll come on the second night, if there is one.”
Dorothy Parker, on an actress who had broken a leg in London: “She must have broken it sliding down a barrister.”
Dorothy Parker, on Katharine Hepburn: “Her emotional range as an actress runs the gamut from A to B.”