THE WOMAN.  Is that an advantage?  We have a person here who has lost both legs in an accident.  His position is unique.  But he would much rather be like everyone else.

THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN.  This is maddening.  There is no analogy whatever between the two cases.

THE WOMAN.  They are both unique.

THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN.  Conversation in this place seems to consist of ridiculous quibbles.  I am heartily tired of them.

THE WOMAN.  I conclude that your Travellers’ Club is an assembly of persons who wish to be able to say that they have been in some place where nobody else has been.

THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN.  Of Course if you wish to sneer at us—­

THE WOMAN.  What is sneer?

THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [with a wild sob] I shall drown myself.

He makes desperately for the edge of the pier, but is confronted by a man with the number one on his cap, who comes up the steps and intercepts him.  He is dressed like the woman, but a slight moustache proclaims his sex.

THE MAN [to the elderly gentleman] Ah, here you are.  I shall really have to put a collar and lead on you if you persist in giving me the slip like this.

THE WOMAN.  Are you this stranger’s nurse?

THE MAN.  Yes.  I am very tired of him.  If I take my eyes off him for a moment, he runs away and talks to everybody.

THE WOMAN [after taking out her tuning-fork and sounding it, intones as before] Burrin Pier.  Wash out. [She puts up the fork, and addresses the man].  I sent a call for someone to take care of him.  I have been trying to talk to him; but I can understand very little of what he says.  You must take better care of him:  he is badly discouraged already.  If I can be of any further use, Fusima, Gort, will find me. [She goes away].

THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN.  Any further use!  She has been of no use to me.  She spoke to me without any introduction, like any improper female.  And she has made off with my shilling.

THE MAN.  Please speak slowly.  I cannot follow.  What is a shilling?  What is an introduction?  Improper female doesnt make sense.

THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN.  Nothing seems to make sense here.  All I can tell you is that she was the most impenetrably stupid woman I have ever met in the whole course of my life.

THE MAN.  That cannot be.  She cannot appear stupid to you.  She is a secondary, and getting on for a tertiary at that.

THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN.  What is a tertiary?  Everybody here keeps talking to me about primaries and secondaries and tertiaries as if people were geological strata.

THE MAN.  The primaries are in their first century.  The secondaries are in their second century.  I am still classed as a primary [he points to his number]; but I may almost call myself a secondary, as I shall be ninety-five next January.  The tertiaries are in their third century.  Did you not see the number two on her badge?  She is an advanced secondary.