TRANTO.  Yes.  Auntie Joe’s.  I’ve just sent her a telephone message to say
I’m ill and confined to the house.

HILDEGARDE.  Which house?

TRANTO.  I didn’t specify any particular house.

HILDEGARDE.  And are you ill?

TRANTO.  I am not....  To get back to the realm of fact, when I read Sampson Straight’s article about the degradation of honours this afternoon—­

HILDEGARDE.  Didn’t you read it before you published it?

TRANTO.  No.  I had to rush off and confront the Medical Board at 9 a.m.  I felt certain the article would be all right.

HILDEGARDE.  And it wasn’t all right.

TRANTO (positively).  Perfectly all right.

HILDEGARDE.  You don’t seem quite sure.  Are we still in the realm of fact, or are we slipping over the frontier?

TRANTO.  The article was perfectly all right.  It rattled off from beginning to end like a machine-gun, and must have caused enormous casualties.  Only I thought Auntie Joe might be one of the casualties.  I thought it might put her out of action as a hostess for a week or so.  You see, for me to publish such an onslaught on new titles in the afternoon, and then attempt to dine with the latest countess the same night—­and she my own aunt—­well, it might be regarded as a bit—­thick.  So I’m confined to the house—­this house as it happens.

HILDEGARDE.  But you told John your people would take the article like meat and drink.

TRANTO.  What if I did?  John can’t expect to discover the whole truth about everything at one go.  He’s found out it’s a jolly strange world.  That ought to satisfy him for to-day.  Besides, he only asked me about my uncles.  He said nothing about my uncles’ wives.  You know what women are—­I mean wives.

HILDEGARDE.  Oh, I do!  Mother is a marvellous specimen.

TRANTO.  I haven’t told you the worst.

HILDEGARDE.  I hope no man ever will.

TRANTO.  The worst is this.  Auntie Joe actually thinks I’m Sampson
Straight.

HILDEGARDE.  She doesn’t!

TRANTO.  She does.  She has an infinite capacity for belief.  The psychology of the thing is as follows.  My governor died a comparatively poor man.  A couple of hundred thousand pounds, more or less.  Whereas Uncle Joe is worth five millions—­and Uncle Joe was going to adopt me, when Auntie Joe butted in and married him.  She used to arrange the flowers for his first wife.  Then she arranged his flowers.  Then she became a flower herself and he had to gather her.  Then she had twins, and my chances of inheriting that five millions (he imitates the noise of a slight explosion) short-circuited!  Well, I didn’t care a volt—­not a volt!  I’ve got lots of uncles left who are quite capable of adopting me.  But I didn’t really want to be adopted at all.  To adopt me was only part of Uncle Joe’s political game.  It was my Echo that he was after adopting.