Jack.  Marlow’s a most decent chap.  It’s simply beastly every one knowing your affairs.

Barthwick.  The less you say about that the better!

Mrs. Barthwick.  It goes all through the lower classes.  You can not tell when they are speaking the truth.  To-day when I was shopping after leaving the Holyroods, one of these unemployed came up and spoke to me.  I suppose I only had twenty yards or so to walk to the carnage, but he seemed to spring up in the street.

Barthwick.  Ah!  You must be very careful whom you speak to in these days.

Mrs. Barthwick.  I did n’t answer him, of course.  But I could see at once that he wasn’t telling the truth.

Barthwick. [Cracking a nut.] There’s one very good rule—­look at their eyes.

Jack.  Crackers, please, Dad.

Barthwick. [Passing the crackers.] If their eyes are straight-forward I sometimes give them sixpence.  It ’s against my principles, but it’s most difficult to refuse.  If you see that they’re desperate, and dull, and shifty-looking, as so many of them are, it’s certain to mean drink, or crime, or something unsatisfactory.

Mrs. Barthwick.  This man had dreadful eyes.  He looked as if he could commit a murder.  “I ’ve ’ad nothing to eat to-day,” he said.  Just like that.

Barthwick.  What was William about?  He ought to have been waiting.

Jack. [Raising his wine-glass to his nose.] Is this the ’63, Dad?

     [Barthwick, holding his wine-glass to his eye, lowers it and
     passes it before his nose.]

Mrs. Barthwick.  I hate people that can’t speak the truth. [Father and son exchange a look behind their port.] It ’s just as easy to speak the truth as not.  I’ve always found it easy enough.  It makes it impossible to tell what is genuine; one feels as if one were continually being taken in.

Barthwick. [Sententiously.] The lower classes are their own enemies.  If they would only trust us, they would get on so much better.

Mrs. Barthwick.  But even then it’s so often their own fault.  Look at that Mrs. Jones this morning.

Barthwick.  I only want to do what’s right in that matter.  I had occasion to see Roper this afternoon.  I mentioned it to him.  He’s coming in this evening.  It all depends on what the detective says.  I’ve had my doubts.  I’ve been thinking it over.

Mrs. Barthwick.  The woman impressed me most unfavourably.  She seemed to have no shame.  That affair she was talking about—­she and the man when they were young, so immoral!  And before you and Jack!  I could have put her out of the room!

Barthwick.  Oh!  I don’t want to excuse them, but in looking at these matters one must consider——­