GILBEY.  Hold your tongue.  Mind your own business.

BOBBY. [wildly] If I’m not let marry her, I’ll do something downright disgraceful.  I’ll enlist as a soldier.

JUGGINS.  That is not a disgrace, sir.

BOBBY.  Not for you, perhaps.  But youre only a footman.  I’m a gentleman.

MRS GILBEY.  Dont dare to speak disrespectfully to Mr Rudolph, Bobby. 
For shame!

JUGGINS. [coming forward to the middle of the table] It is not gentlemanly to regard the service of your country as disgraceful.  It is gentlemanly to marry the lady you make love to.

GILBEY. [aghast] My boy is to marry this woman and be a social outcast!

JUGGINS.  Your boy and Miss Delaney will be inexorably condemned by respectable society to spend the rest of their days in precisely the sort of company they seem to like best and be most at home in.

KNOX.  And my daughter?  Whos to marry my daughter?

JUGGINS.  Your daughter, sir, will probably marry whoever she makes up her mind to marry.  She is a lady of very determined character.

KNOX.  Yes:  if he’d have her with her character gone.  But who would?  Youre the brother of a duke.  Would—­

BOBBY.      |   Whats that?
|
MARGARET.   |   Juggins a duke?
|
DUVALLET.   |   Comment!
|
DORA.       |   What did I tell you?

KNOX.  Yes:  the brother of a duke:  thats what he is. [To Juggins] Well, would you marry her?

JUGGINS.  I was about to propose that solution of your problem, Mr Knox.

MRS GILBEY. |   Well I never!
|
KNOX.       |   D’ye mean it?
|
MRS KNOX.   |   Marry Margaret!

JUGGINS. [continuing] As an idle younger son, unable to support myself, or even to remain in the Guards in competition with the grandsons of American millionaires, I could not have aspired to Miss Knox’s hand.  But as a sober, honest, and industrious domestic servant, who has, I trust, given satisfaction to his employer [he bows to Mr Gilbey] I feel I am a man with a character.  It is for Miss Knox to decide.

MARGARET.  I got into a frightful row once for admiring you, Rudolph.

JUGGINS.  I should have got into an equally frightful row myself, Miss, had I betrayed my admiration for you.  I looked forward to those weekly dinners.

MRS KNOX.  But why did a gentleman like you stoop to be a footman?

DORA.  He stooped to conquer.

MARGARET.  Shut up, Dora:  I want to hear.

JUGGINS.  I will explain; but only Mrs Knox will understand.  I once insulted a servant—­rashly; for he was a sincere Christian.  He rebuked me for trifling with a girl of his own class.  I told him to remember what he was, and to whom he was speaking.  He said God would remember.  I discharged him on the spot.

GILBEY.  Very properly.

KNOX.  What right had he to mention such a thing to you?