making up her daily list on tablets with a little gold pencil fastened to her wrist.  She is personable, forty-eight, trim, well-dressed, and more matter-of-fact than seems plausible.  Mr March is sitting in an armchair, sideways to the windows, smoking his pipe and reading his newspaper, with little explosions to which no one pays any attention, because it is his daily habit.  He is a fine-looking man of fifty odd, with red-grey moustaches and hair, both of which stiver partly by nature and partly because his hands often push them up.  Mary and Johnny are close to the fireplace, stage Right.  Johnny sits on the fender, smoking a cigarette and warming his back.  He is a commonplace looking young man, with a decided jaw, tall, neat, soulful, who has been in the war and writes poetry.  Mary is less ordinary; you cannot tell exactly what is the matter with her.  She too is tall, a little absent, fair, and well-looking.  She has a small china dog in her hand, taken from the mantelpiece, and faces the audience.  As the curtain rises she is saying in her soft and pleasant voice:  “Well, what is the matter with us all, Johnny?”

Johnny.  Stuck, as we were in the trenches—­like china dogs. [He points to the ornament in her hand.]

Mr March. [Into his newspaper] Damn these people!

Mary.  If there isn’t an ideal left, Johnny, it’s no good pretending one.

Johnny.  That’s what I’m saying:  Bankrupt!

Mary.  What do you want?

Mrs March. [To herself] Mutton cutlets.  Johnny, will you be in to lunch? [Johnny shakes his head] Mary? [Mary nods] Geof?

Mr March. [Into his paper] Swine!

Mrs March.  That’ll be three. [To herself] Spinach.

Johnny.  If you’d just missed being killed for three blooming years for no spiritual result whatever, you’d want something to bite on, Mary.

Mrs March. [Jotting] Soap.

Johnny.  What price the little and weak, now?  Freedom and self-determination, and all that?

Mary.  Forty to one—­no takers.

Johnny.  It doesn’t seem to worry you.

Mary.  Well, what’s the good?

Johnny.  Oh, you’re a looker on, Mary.

Mr March. [To his newspaper] Of all Godforsaken time-servers!

     Mary is moved so lar as to turn and look over his shoulder a minute.

Johnny.  Who?

Mary.  Only the Old-Un.

Mr March.  This is absolutely Prussian!

Mrs March.  Soup, lobster, chicken salad.  Go to Mrs Hunt’s.

Mr March.  And this fellow hasn’t the nous to see that if ever there were a moment when it would pay us to take risks, and be generous—­My hat!  He ought to be—­knighted! [Resumes his paper.]