“She only demands from each of you either one thing very clever, be it prose or verse, original or repeated – or two things moderately clever – or three things very dull indeed, and she engages to laugh heartily at them all.”
– Jane Austen
Emma, Chapter 43. At the Box Hill picnic we see Frank Churchill’s deception at work. In a calculated performance to appear as if he is pursuing Emma, he flirts with her. He demands that everyone in the group play a game of saying clever and dull things for Emma to judge. His flirtation is a ruse to conceal his secret engagement to Jane Fairfax.