d.i.c.k.
On the contrary, I"m in the very best of health.
LADY KELSEY.
But I saw in the papers that you were going to give up your seat in the House owing to ill-health.
d.i.c.k.
Of course, I"d forgotten. My heart is seriously deranged.
MRS. CROWLEY.
How dreadful! What is the matter with it?
d.i.c.k.
Can you ask? I"ve banged it about at your feet so long that its functions are excessively impaired. And it"s beaten all my waistcoats out of shape.
MRS. CROWLEY.
Don"t be so foolish. I was quite alarmed.
d.i.c.k.
I"m going to retire.
LADY KELSEY.
From the bar as well?
d.i.c.k.
From the bar as well. Henceforth I shall cultivate only such arts and graces as are proper to the man of leisure. My fellow men are a great deal too strenuous, and I propose to offer them the spectacle of a complete idler who demands from the world neither honours nor profit, but only entertainment.
MRS. CROWLEY.
D"you mean to say you"re going to give up a large practice and a position which may be very important merely to gratify a foolish whim?
d.i.c.k.
I haven"t time to work. Life is so much too short. A little while ago it occurred to me that I was nearly forty. [_To_ MRS. CROWLEY.] D"you know the feeling?
MRS. CROWLEY.
No, of course not. Don"t be so uncivil.
d.i.c.k.
By the way, how old are you?
MRS. CROWLEY.
Twenty-nine!
d.i.c.k.
Nonsense! There"s no such age.
MRS. CROWLEY.
I beg your pardon, upper parlourmaids are always twenty-nine.
d.i.c.k.
For years I"ve spent eight hours a day meddling with silly persons"
silly quarrels, and eight hours more governing the nation. I"ve never been able to spend more than half my income. I"m merely working myself to death in order to leave a fortune to my nieces, two desperately plain girls with red noses.
LADY KELSEY.
But what are you going to do?
d.i.c.k.
Oh, I don"t know. Perhaps I"ll try my hand at big game shooting, if Alec will take me on this expedition of his. I"ve always thought shooting would be an agreeable pastime if partridges were the size of well-grown sheep and pheasants a little larger than a cow.
MRS. CROWLEY.
Then the breakdown in your health is all humbug?
d.i.c.k.
Absolute humbug. If I were to tell the truth people would shut me up in a lunatic asylum. I"ve come to the conclusion that there"s only one game in the world worth playing, and that"s the game of life. I"m rich enough to devote myself to it entirely.
MRS. CROWLEY.
But you"ll get bored to death.
d.i.c.k.
Not I! Why, I"m growing younger every day. My dear Mrs. Crowley, I don"t feel a day more than eighteen.
MRS. CROWLEY.
You certainly look quite twenty-five.
d.i.c.k.
I haven"t a white hair in my head.