Culch. (overjoyed).  You don’t say so!  Then all I can say, PODBURY, is that if we two can’t manage, in a place like this, to recover all the ground we have lost—­

Podb. More water than ground in a place like this, eh?  But I know what you mean—­we must be duffers if we don’t leave Venice engaged men—­which we’re not as yet, worse luck!

Culch. No—­but we shall be, if we only insist upon being treated seriously.

Podb. She treats me a devilish deal too seriously, my boy.  But there, never mind—­things will go better now!

    SCENE—­A double-bedded room in the Grand Hotel, Dandolo,
    which PODBURY and CULCHARD have to share for the night.

Podb. (from his bed, suspiciously, to CULCHARD, who is setting fire to a small pastille in a soap-dish).  I say, old chappie, bar fireworks, you know!  What the deuce are you up to over there?

Culch. Lighting a “fidibus.”  Splendid thing to drive out mosquitoes. (The pastille fizzes, and begins to emit a dense white smoke, and a suffocating odour.)

Podb. (bounding).  Mosquitoes!  It would drive a dragon out.  Phew—­ah! (CULCHARD closes the window.) You don’t mean to say you’re going to shut me up in this infernal reek on a stifling night like this?

Culch. If I didn’t, the mosquitoes would come in again.

Podb. Come in?  With that pastille doing the young Vesuvius! Do you think a mosquito’s a born fool? (He jumps out and opens the window.) I’m not going to be smoked like a wasps’ nest, I can tell you!

Culch. (calmly shutting it again, as PODBURY returns to bed).  You’ll be grateful to me by-and-by.

    [Slips between his mosquito-curtains in a gingerly manner,
    and switches off the electric light.  A silence.

Podb. I say, you ain’t asleep, are you?  Think we shall see anything of them to-morrow, eh?

Culch. See?  I can hear one singing in my ear at this moment. (Irritably.) You would open the window!

Podb. (sleepily).  Not mosquitoes.  I meant HYPATIA, and the—­haw—­yaw—­TROTTERS.

Culch. How can I tell? (Second silence.) PODBURY!  What did I tell you?  One’s just bitten me—­the beast! (He turns on the light, and slaps about frantically).  I say, I can hear him buzzing all over the place!

Podb. So can I hear you buzzing.  How the dickens is a fellow to get to sleep while you’re playing Punch and Judy in there?

Culch. He’s got me on the nose now!  There’s a lot outside.  Just turn off the light, will you?  I daren’t put my arm out. (To Mosquito.) You brute! (To Podb.) PODBURY, do switch off the light—­like a good fellow!