Louis.  Minnie Tinwell is a young woman who has had three weeks of glorious happiness in her poor little life, which is more than most girls in her position get, I can tell you.  Ask her whether she’d take it back if she could.  She’s got her name into history, that girl.  My little sketches of her will be bought by collectors at Christie’s.  She’ll have a page in my biography.  Pretty good, that, for a still-room maid at a seaside hotel, I think.  What have you fellows done for her to compare with that?

Ridgeon.  We havnt trapped her into a mock marriage and deserted her.

Louis.  No:  you wouldnt have the pluck.  But dont fuss yourselves.  I didnt desert little Minnie.  We spent all our money—­

Walpole.  All her money.  Thirty pounds.

Louis.  I said all our money:  hers and mine too.  Her thirty pounds didnt last three days.  I had to borrow four times as much to spend on her.  But I didnt grudge it; and she didnt grudge her few pounds either, the brave little lassie.  When we were cleaned out, we’d had enough of it:  you can hardly suppose that we were fit company for longer than that:  I an artist, and she quite out of art and literature and refined living and everything else.  There was no desertion, no misunderstanding, no police court or divorce court sensation for you moral chaps to lick your lips over at breakfast.  We just said, Well, the money’s gone:  weve had a good time that can never be taken from us; so kiss; part good friends; and she back to service, and I back to my studio and my Jennifer, both the better and happier for our holiday.

Walpole.  Quite a little poem, by George!’

B. B. If you had been scientifically trained, Mr Dubedat, you would know how very seldom an actual case bears out a principle.  In medical practice a man may die when, scientifically speaking, he ought to have lived.  I have actually known a man die of a disease from which he was scientifically speaking, immune.  But that does not affect the fundamental truth of science.  In just the same way, in moral cases, a man’s behavior may be quite harmless and even beneficial, when he is morally behaving like a scoundrel.  And he may do great harm when he is morally acting on the highest principles.  But that does not affect the fundamental truth of morality.

Sir Patrick.  And it doesnt affect the criminal law on the subject of bigamy.

Louis.  Oh bigamy! bigamy! bigamy!  What a fascination anything connected with the police has for you all, you moralists!  Ive proved to you that you were utterly wrong on the moral point:  now I’m going to shew you that youre utterly wrong on the legal point; and I hope it will be a lesson to you not to be so jolly cocksure next time.

Walpole.  Rot!  You were married already when you married her; and that settles it.

Louis.  Does it!  Why cant you think?  How do you know she wasnt married already too?