My pet, there are nuts on the drawing-room carpet!

AGATHA POSKET.

Yes, I want to speak to you, aeneas.

MR. POSKET.

About the nuts?

AGATHA POSKET.

No--about Miss Tomlinson--your little _protegee._

MR. POSKET.

Ah, nice little thing.

AGATHA POSKET.

Very. But not old enough to exert any decided influence over the boy's musical future. Why not engage a master?

MR. POSKET.

What, for a mere child?

AGATHA POSKET.

A mere child--oh!

MR. POSKET.

A boy of fourteen!

AGATHA POSKET.

[_To herself._] Fourteen!

MR. POSKET.

A boy of fourteen, not yet out of Czerny's exercises.

AGATHA POSKET.

[_To herself._] If we were alone now, I might have the desperation to tell him all!

MR. POSKET.

Besides, my darling, you know the interest I take in Miss Tomlinson; she is one of the brightest little spots on my hobby-horse. Like all our servants, like everybody in my employ, she has been brought to my notice through the unhappy medium of the Police Court over which it is my destiny to preside. Our servant, Wyke, a man with a beautiful nature, is the son of a person I committed for trial for marrying three wives. To this day, Wyke is ignorant as to which of those three wives he is the son of! Cook was once a notorious dipsomaniac, and has even now not entirely freed herself from early influences. Popham is the unclaimed charge of a convicted baby-farmer. Even our milkman came before me as a man who had refused to submit specimens to the a.n.a.lytic inspector. And this poor child, what is she?

AGATHA POSKET.

Yes, I know.

MR. POSKET.

The daughter of a superannuated General, who abstracted four silk umbrellas from the Army and Navy Stores--and on a fine day too!

[_BEATIE ceases playing._

MR. BULLAMY.

Very good--very good!

MR. POSKET.

Thank you--thank you!

MR. BULLAMY.

[_To MR. POSKET, coughing and laughing and popping a jujube into his mouth._] My dear Posket, I really must congratulate you on that boy of yours--your stepson. A most wonderful lad. So confoundedly advanced too.

MR. POSKET.

Yes, isn't he? Eh!

MR. BULLAMY.

[_Confidentially._] While the piano was going on just now, he told me one of the most humorous stories I've ever heard. [_Laughing heartily and panting, then taking another jujube._] Ha, ha, bless me, I don't know when I have taken so many jujubes!

MR. POSKET.

My dear Bullamy, my entire marriage is the greatest possible success.

A little romantic, too. [_Pointing to AGATHA POSKET._] Beautiful woman!

MR. BULLAMY.

Very, very. I never committed a more stylish, elegant creature.

MR. POSKET.

Thank you, Bullamy--we met abroad, at Spa, when I was on my holiday.

_WYKE enters with tea-tray, which he hands round._

MR. BULLAMY.

I shall go there next year.

MR. POSKET.