SLADDER: Yes, in Ermyntrude's sitting-room. Send for her.
SPLURGE: Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Miss Sladder! Miss Sladder!
ERMYNTRUDE (off): Yes, Mr. Splurge.
SPLURGE: Would you come to the study, miss, Mr. Sladder wants to speak to you.
ERMYNTRUDE: O, yes, Mr. Splurge.
SLADDER: The test! The test!
[Re-enter SPLURGE.
SPLURGE: Miss Sladder is coming, sir.
SLADDER: The test!
[Enter ERMYNTRUDE.
ERMYNTRUDE: What is it, father?
SLADDER: How are your white mice, child?
ERMYNTRUDE: Quite well, father, both of them.
Sladder (draws a box from his pocket, takes out a little bit of cheese): Give them that, Ermyntrude.
ERMYNTRUDE: That, father. What is it?
SLADDER: Cheese.
ERMYNTRUDE: May I have a bit?
SLADDER: No, don't touch it!
ERMYNTRUDE: Very well, father.
SLADDER: If they eat it, you shall have--
ERMYNTRUDE: What, father?
SLADDER: Anything, everything. Only go and give them the cheese.
ERMYNTRUDE: All right, father.
[She moves to the door R., she looks round, then goes out by the French window instead.
SLADDER: Why are you going that way, child?
ERMYNTRUDE: O-er-I thought it would be nice to go round over the lawn, father. I can get in by the drawing-room.
SLADDER: O, very well. Be quick, dear.
ERMYNTRUDE: All right, father.
[The magnet that has attracted ERMYNTRUDE to the lawn now appears in the form of MR. HIPPANTHIGH, passing the window on his way to the hall-door. SLADDER and SPLURGE do not see him, having their backs to the window. ERMYNTRUDE looks round now and then to be sure of this. They hold hands longer than is laid down as necessary in books upon etiquette under the head of visiting. She gives him a look of glad and hopeful interrogation but he shakes his head solemnly, and passes gravely on, as one whose errand is no cheerful duty. She looks after him, then goes her way.
SLADDER: Well, Splurge, we can only wait. (With emphasis. ) If these mice eat it--
SPLURGE: Yes, sir?
SLADDER: The public will eat it.
SPLURGE: Ah!
SLADDER: Any other business to-day?
SPLURGE: O, only the cook, sir. He's complaining about the vegetables, sir. He says he's never been anywhere before where they didn't buy them. We get them out of the kitchen garden here, and it seems he doesn't understand it. Says he won't serve a greengrocer, sir.
SLADDER: A kitchen garden is the wrong thing, is it?
SPLURGE: He says so, sir.
SLADDER: But there was one here when we came.
SPLURGE: O, only country people, sir. I suppose they didn't know any better.
SLADDER: Well, where do people grow vegetables, then?
SPLURGE: I asked the cook that, sir, and he said they don't grow them, they buy them.
SLADDER: O, all right, then. Let him buy them, then. We must do the right thing.
[The hall-door bell rings.
SLADDER: Hullo! Who's ringing my bell?
SPLURGE: That was the hall-door, wasn't it, sir?
SLADDER: Yes. What are they ringing it for?
[Enter BUTLER.
BUTLER: Mr. Hippanthigh has called to see you, sir.
SLADDER: Called to see me! What about?
BUTLER: He didn't inform me, sir.
SLADDER: I say, Splurge, have I got to see him?
SPLURGE: I think so, sir. I think they call on one another like that in the country.
SLADDER: Good lord, whatever for? (To BUTLER.) O, yes. I'll see him, I'll see him.
BUTLER: Very good, sir, I'll inform him so, sir.
[Exit.
SLADDER: I say, Splurge, I suppose I've got to have a butler, and all that, eh?
SPLURGE: O, yes, sir. One at least. It's quite necessary.
SLADDER: You-you couldn't have bought me a cheerfuller one now, could you?
SPLURGE: I'm afraid not, sir. If you were to take all this too lightheartedly, the other landowners would hardly like it, you know.
SLADDER: O, well! O, well! What kind of man is this Hippanthigh that's coming?
SPLURGE: He's the man that quarrels with the bishop, sir.
SLADDER: O, the curate. O, yes. I've heard about him. He's been here before, I think. Lawn tennis.
[Enter BUTLER.
BUTLER: Mr. Hippanthigh, sir.
[Enter HIPPANTHIGH. Exit BUTLER.
SLADDER: How do you do, Mr. Hippanthigh? How do you do? Pleased to see you.
HIPPANTHIGH: I wished to speak with you, Mr. Sladder, if you will permit me.
SLADDER: Certainly, Mr. Hippanthigh, certainly. Take a chair.
HIPPANTHIGH: Thank you, sir. I think I would sooner stand.
SLADDER: Please yourself. Please yourself.
HIPPANTHIGH: I wished to speak with you alone, sir.
SLADDER: Alone, eh? Alone? (Aside to SPLURGE.) It's usual, eh? (To HIPPANTHIGH.) Alone, of course, yes. You've come to call, haven't you. (Exit SPLURGE.) Can I offer you-er, er-calling's not much in my line, you know-but what I mean is-will you have a bottle of champagne?
HIPPANTHIGH: Mr. Sladder, I've come to speak with you because I believe it to be my duty to do so. I have hesitated to come, but when for particular reasons it became most painful to me to do so, then I knew that it was my clear duty, and I have come.
SLADDER: O, yes, what they call a duty call. O, yes, quite so. Yes, exactly.
HIPPANTHIGH: Mr. Sladder, many of my parishioners are acquainted with the thing that you sell as bread. (From the moment of HIPPANTHIGH'S entry till now SLADDER, over-cheerful and anxious, has been struggling to do and say the right thing through all the complications of a visit; but now that the note of Business has been sounded he suddenly knows where he is and becomes alert and stern, and all there.)
SLADDER: What? Virilo?
HIPPANTHIGH: Yes. They pay more for it than they pay for bread, because they've been taught somehow, poor fools, that "they must have the best." They've been made to believe that it makes them, what they call virile, poor fools, and they're growing ill on it. Not so ill that I can prove anything, and the doctor daren't help me.
SLADDER: Are you aware, Mr. Hippanthigh, that if you said in public what you're saying to me, you would go to prison for it, unless you can run to the very heavy fine-damages would be enormous.
HIPPANTHIGH: I know that, Mr. Sladder, and so I have come to you as the last hope for my people.
SLADDER: Are you aware, Mr. Hippanthigh, that you are making an attack upon business? I don't say that business is as pure as a surplice. But I do say that in business it is-as you may not understand-get on or go under; and without my business, or the business of the next man, who is doing his best to beat me, what would happen to trade? I don't know what's going to happen to England if you get rid of her trade, Mr. Hippanthigh.... Well?... When we're broke because we've been doing business with surplices on, what are the other countries going to do, Mr. Hippanthigh? Can you answer me that?