PERVERSITY CHALLENGE 1

Due to dwindling sales the all too often absentee landlord of this site has sexed it up a bit with a new regular feature : "Perversity Challenge".
All very simple really. You just need to identify the rogues or answer the questions.
Here is yer starter ( first prize a midnight meeting with lavenderBlue on Hampstead Heath) and good luck.

Identify the two people involved in the conversation :-
" Your connection with any newspaper would be a disgrace and a degradation. I would rather sell gin to poor people and poison them that way. "