(Presently ENTERS a liveried Footman, who stands at attention with the paper upon a salver.  Touching the table at her side as an indication, the Queen continues to write.  With gingerly reverence the man lays down the paper and goes.  Twice she looks at it before taking it up; then she unfolds it; then lays it down, and takes out her glasses; then begins reading.  Evidently she comes on something she does not like; she pats the table impatiently, then exclaims:)

Most extraordinary!

(A wasp settles on the peaches.)

And I wish one could kill all wicked pests as easily as you.

 (She makes a dab with the paper-knife, the wasp escapes.)

Most extraordinary!

(Relinquishing the pursuit of wasps, she resumes her reading.)

(In a little while Mr. John Brown returns, both hands occupied.  The chair he deposits by the tent door, and hitches Mop’s “lead” to the back of that on which the Queen is sitting.  With the small beginnings of a smile she lowers the paper, and looks at him and his accompaniments.)

QUEEN.  Well, Brown?  Oh, yes; that’s quite a nice one....  I’m sure there’s a wasps’ nest somewhere; there are so many of them about.

J.B.  Eh, don’t fash yourself!  Wasps have a way of being aboot this time of year.  It’s the fruit they’re after.

QUEEN.  Yes:  like Adam and Eve.

J.B.  That’s just it, Ma’am.

QUEEN.  You’d better take it away, Brown, or cover it; it’s too tempting.

J.B. (removing the fruit).  Ah!  Now if God had only done that, maybe we’d still all be running aboot naked.

QUEEN.  I’m glad He didn’t, then.

J.B.  Ye’re right, Ma’am.

QUEEN.  The Fall made the human race decent, even if it did no good otherwise.  Brown, I’ve dropped my glasses.

(He picks them up and returns them.)

QUEEN.  Thank you, Brown,

J.B.  So you’re expecting a visitor, ye say?

QUEEN.  Yes.  You haven’t seen Lord Beaconsfield yet, I suppose?

J.B.  Since he was to arrive off the train, you mean, Ma’am?  No:  he came early.  He’s in his room.

QUEEN.  I hope they have given him a comfortable one.

J.B.  It’s the one I used to have.  There’s a good spring-bed in it, and a kettle-ring for the whisky.

QUEEN.  Oh, that’s all right, then.

J.B.  Will he be staying for long?  Ma’am.

QUEEN.  Only for a week, I’m afraid.  Why?

J.B.  It’s about the shooting I was thinking:  whether it was the deer or the grouse he’d want to be after.

QUEEN.  I don’t think Lord Beaconsfield is a sportsman.

J.B.  I know that, Ma’am, well enough.  But there’s many who are not sportsmen that think they’ve got to do it—­when they come north of the Tweed.

QUEEN.  Lord Beaconsfield will not shoot, I’m sure.  You remember him,
Brown, being here before?