TREBELL.  Look at these.

      He smacks on the back, so to speak, the pile of parcels and letters.

KENT.  Oh, lord! ...  I’d better start on them.

FRANCES. [Continuing in her smooth oldmaidish manner.] Thank you for getting engaged just before you went off with Henry ... it has given me my only news of him, through Lucy and your postcards.

TREBELL.  Oh, what about Wedgecroft?

KENT.  I think it was he spun up just as I’d been let in.

TREBELL.  Oh, well ... [And he rings at the telephone which is on his table.]

KENT. [Confiding in MISS TREBELL.] We’re a common sense couple, aren’t we? 
I offered to ask to stay behind but she....

      SIMPSON, the maid, comes in.

SIMPSON.  Dr. Wedgecroft, sir.

WEDGECROFT is on her heels.  If you have an eye for essentials you may tell at once that he is a doctor, but if you only notice externals you will take him, for anything else.  He is over forty and in perfect health of body and spirit.  His enthusiasms are his vitality and he has too many of them ever to lose one.  He squeezes MISS TREBELL’S hand with an air of fearless affection which is another of his characteristics and not the least loveable.

WEDGECROFT.  How are you?

FRANCES.  I’m very well, thanks.

WEDGECROFT. [To TREBELL, as they shake hands.] You’re looking fit.

TREBELL. [With tremendous emphasis.] I am!

WEDGECROFT.  You’ve got the motor eye though.

TREBELL.  Full of dust?

WEDGECROFT.  Look at Kent’s. [He takes WALTER’S arm.] It’s a slight but serious contraction of the pupil ... which I charge fifty guineas to cure.

FRANCES.  It’s the eye of faith in you and your homeopathic doses.  Don’t you interfere with it.

      FRANCES TREBELL, housekeeper, goes out. KENT has seized on the
      letters and is carrying them to his room.

KENT.  This looks like popularity and the great heart of the people, doesn’t it?

WEDGECROFT.  Trebell, you’re not ill, and I’ve work to do.

TREBELL.  I want ten minutes.  Keep anybody out, Kent.

KENT.  I’ll switch that speaking tube arrangement to my room.

      TREBELL, overflowing with vitality, starts to face the floor.

TREBELL.  I’ve seen the last of Pump Court, Gilbert.

WEDGECROFT.  The Bar ought to give you a testimonial ... to the man who not only could retire on twenty years’ briefs, but has.

TREBELL.  Fifteen.  But I bled the City sharks with a good conscience ... quite freely.

WEDGECROFT. [With a pretence at grumbling.] I wish I could retire.

TREBELL.  No you don’t.  Doctoring’s a priestcraft ... you’ve taken vows.

WEDGECROFT.  Then why don’t you establish our church instead of ...