"I'm sure," he responded, sardonically.

But the hard choices, well, they'd agree there. There will be times - in his Eleventh incarnation, for instance - when the Doctor's behavior will come close enough to the Master's; but this is all unknown, and it could be debated whether or not it would make much of a difference.

"Perhaps it is simply sentimentality in your old age - such regrets! That I have never heard you express before."