Hallo ! Wheres your luggage ? Not her business , exactly , is it ? No . Now seriously , Bunny , Ive come down here to have a pleasant week-end ; and I 'm not going to stand your confounded arguments . If you want to argue , get out of this and go over to the Congregationalist minister 's . He 's a nailer at arguing . He likes it . Whats the matter with Bunny ? An afterthought ? What do you mean by that ? BENTLEY . I — No , stop : I dont want to know . It 's only a dodge to start an argument . Thank you . Does it , by George ? You stop me doing it if you can : thats all . No : you dont run away . I 'm going to have this out with you . Sit down : d'y ’ hear ?Thats the advantage of having more body than brains , you see : it enables me to teach you manners ; and I 'm going to do it too . Youre a spoilt young pup ; and you need a jolly good licking . And if youre not careful youll get it : I 'll see to that next time you call me a swine . Try it , my son .Fighting isnt in your line . Youre too small and youre too childish . I always suspected that your cleverness wouldnt come to very much when it was brought up against something solid : some decent chap 's fist , for instance . All right , my lad , all right . Sling your mud as hard as you please : it wont stick to me . What I want to know is this . How is it that your father , who I suppose is the strongest man England has produced in our time — I dont set up to be able to do anything but admire him and appreciate him and be proud of him as an Englishman . If it wasnt for my respect for him , I wouldnt have stood your cheek for two days , let alone two months . But what I cant understand is why he didnt lick it out of you when you were a kid . For twenty-five years he kept a place twice as big as England in order : a place full of seditious coffee-colored heathens and pestilential white agitators in the middle of a lot of savage tribes . And yet he couldnt keep you in order . I dont set up to be half the man your father undoubtedly is ; but , by George , it 's lucky for you you were not my son . I dont hold with my own father 's views about corporal punishment being wrong . It 's necessary for some people ; and I 'd have tried it on you until you first learnt to howl and then to behave yourself . Now you keep a civil tongue in your head . I 'll stand none of your snobbery . I 'm just as proud of Tarleton 's Underwear as you are of your father 's title and his K. C. B ., and all the rest of it . My father began in a little hole of a shop in Leeds no bigger than our pantry down the passage there . He — Well : did they shrink ? Never mind whether I 'm a fool or not . Did they shrink ? Thats the point . Were they worth the money ? Pity your father didnt give your thin skin a jolly good lacing with a cane —! Jolly good thing for you that my father made you come into the office and shew what you were made of . And it didnt come to much : let me tell you that . When the Governor asked me where I thought we ought to put you , I said , “ Make him the Office Boy . ” The Governor said you were too green . And so you were . Dont talk rot , child . You know you simply make me pity you . A what ! If you dont take that back and apologize for your bad manners , I 'll give you as good a hiding as ever — Dont be a fool . Stop that noise , will you . I 'm not going to touch you . Sh — sh — Hypatia rushes in through the inner door , followed by Mrs Tarleton , and throws herself on her knees by Bentley . Mrs Tarleton , whose knees are stiffer , bends over him and tries to lift him . Mrs Tarleton is a shrewd and motherly old lady who has been pretty in her time , and is still very pleasant and likeable and unaffected . Hypatia is a typical English girl of a sort never called typical : that is , she has an opaque white skin , black hair , large dark eyes with black brows and lashes , curved lips , swift glances and movements that flash out of a waiting stillness , boundless energy and audacity held in leash . It 's twenty-seven years , mother , since you had that row with me for licking Robert and giving Hypatia a black eye because she bit me . I promised you then that I 'd never raise my hand to one of them again ; and Ive never broken my word . And now because this young whelp begins to cry out before he 's hurt , you treat me as if I were a brute and a savage . Dont you interfere between my mother and me : d'y ’ hear ? You did it on purpose . I wasnt quite myself : I needed a moment to pull round : thank you . No : he 's opening one of his free libraries . Thats another nice little penny gone . He 's mad on reading . He promised another free library last week . It 's ruinous . Itll hit you as well as me when Bunny marries Hypatia . When all Hypatia 's money is thrown away on libraries , where will Bunny come in ? Cant you stop him ? Oh , public work ! He does too much of it . It 's really a sort of laziness , getting away from your own serious business to amuse yourself with other people 's . Mind : I dont say there isnt another side to it . It has its value as an advertisement . It makes useful acquaintances and leads to valuable business connections . But it takes his mind off the main chance ; and he overdoes it . Or he can spend more on it than it brings him in : thats how I look at it . What I say is that everybody 's business is nobody 's business . I hope I 'm not a hard man , nor a narrow man , nor unwilling to pay reasonable taxes , and subscribe in reason to deserving charities , and even serve on a jury in my turn ; and no man can say I ever refused to help a friend out of a difficulty when he was worth helping . But when you ask me to go beyond that , I tell you frankly I dont see it . I never did see it , even when I was only a boy , and had to pretend to take in all the ideas the Governor fed me up with . I didnt see it ; and I dont see it . So I say . It 's really a great encouragement to me to find you agree with me . For of course if nobody agrees with you , how are you to know that youre not a fool ? I wish youd talk to him about it . It 's no use my saying anything : I 'm a child to him still : I have no influence . Besides , you know how to handle men . See how you handled me when I was making a fool of myself about Bunny ! Oh yes I was : I know I was . Well , if my blessed father had come in he 'd have told me to control myself . As if I was losing my temper on purpose ! Bentley returns , newly washed . He beams when he sees his father , and comes affectionately behind him and pats him on the shoulders . Flam what ? Not a bad idea , that . Going to meet the Governor . You know you wouldnt think it ; but the Governor likes Bunny rather . And Bunny is cultivating it . I shouldnt be surprised if he thought he could squeeze me out one of these days . Right you are . Thatll suit me down to the ground .Mrs Tarleton and Hypatia come back just as the two men are going out . Hypatia salutes Summerhays from a distance with an enigmatic lift of her eyelids in his direction and a demure nod before she sits down at the worktable and busies herself with her needle . Mrs Tarleton , hospitably fussy , goes over to him . We 're going out for a stroll , mother . Done what ? Leave it at that . Thats good sense . Anybody on for a game of tennis ? If you ask me , no . Yes I do . I bet you what you like that , page for page , I read more than you , though I dont talk about it so much . Only , I dont read the same books . I like a book with a plot in it . You like a book with nothing in it but some idea that the chap that writes it keeps worrying , like a cat chasing its own tail . I can stand a little of it , just as I can stand watching the cat for two minutes , say , when Ive nothing better to do . But a man soon gets fed up with that sort of thing . The fact is , you look on an author as a sort of god . I look on him as a man that I pay to do a certain thing for me . I pay him to amuse me and to take me out of myself and make me forget . If Kipling wants to remember , let him remember . If he had to run Tarleton 's Underwear , he 'd be jolly glad to forget . As he has a much softer job , and wants to keep himself before the public , his cry is , “ Dont you forget the sort of things I 'm rather clever at writing about . ” Well , I dont blame him : it 's his business : I should do the same in his place . But what he wants and what I want are two different things . I want to forget ; and I pay another man to make me forget . If I buy a book or go to the theatre , I want to forget the shop and forget myself from the moment I go in to the moment I come out . Thats what I pay my money for . And if I find that the author 's simply getting at me the whole time , I consider that hes obtained my money under false pretences . I 'm not a morbid crank : I 'm a natural man ; and , as such , I dont like being got at . If a man in my employment did it , I should sack him . If a member of my club did it , I should cut him . If he went too far with it , I should bring his conduct before the committee . I might even punch his head , if it came to that . Well , who and what is an author that he should be privileged to take liberties that are not allowed to other men ? I 'm no fool , mother , whatever some people may fancy . I dont set up to have as many ideas as the Governor ; but what ideas I have are consecutive , at all events . I can think as well as talk . I 'm not saying anything against you , Governor . But I do say that the time has come for sane , healthy , unpretending men like me to make a stand against this conspiracy of the writing and talking and artistic lot to put us in the back row . It isnt a fact that we 're inferior to them : it 's a put-up job ; and it 's they that have put the job up . It 's we that run the country for them ; and all the thanks we get is to be told we 're Philistines and vulgar tradesmen and sordid city men and so forth , and that theyre all angels of light and leading . The time has come to assert ourselves and put a stop to their stuck-up nonsense . Perhaps if we had nothing better to do than talking or writing , we could do it better than they . Anyhow , theyre the failures and refuse of businessand we 're the successes of it . Thank God I havnt failed yet at anything ; and I dont believe I should fail at literature if it would pay me to turn my hand to it . Oh ! You think youve always kept that to yourself , do you , Governor ? I know your opinion of me as well as you know it yourself . It takes one man of business to appreciate another ; and you arnt , and you never have been , a real man of business . I know where Tarleton 's would have been three of four times if it hadnt been for me . Now that the Governor has given himself away , and the old lady 's gone , I 'll tell you something , Lord Summerhays . If you study men whove made an enormous pile in business without being keen on money , youll find that they all have a slate off . The Governor 's a wonderful man ; but hes not quite all there , you know . If you notice , hes different from me ; and whatever my failings may be , I 'm a sane man . Erratic : thats what he is . And the danger is that some day he 'll give the whole show away . Has it ever occurred to you that a man with an open mind must be a bit of a scoundrel ? If you ask me , I like a man who makes up his mind once for all as to whats right and whats wrong and then sticks to it . At all events you know where to have him . Well , let him . If a member of my club wants to steal my umbrella , he knows where to find it . If a man put up for the club who had an open mind on the subject of property in umbrellas , I should blackball him . An open mind is all very well in clever talky-talky ; but in conduct and in business give me solid ground . I dont know . You can draw a line and make other chaps toe it . Thats what I call morality . Do you no end of good , young chap . Hypatia throws aside her work with an enormous sigh of relief . We cant all be dreaming the same thing , Governor . I 'll shew you . | Hallo , mother this is all very well , you know — | PERCIVAL . | But may I point out , Mrs Tarleton , that — | BENTLEY . | Do you mean that after what he said of — | HYPATIA . | Oh , look here , mamma : this is really — He has said what he had to say already , hasnt he ? Read that paper . | Then what do you mean by saying that — | HYPATIA . | Do you mean to say that I — | BENTLEY . | Oh , you are a rotter . Youre afraid — Hes out of his mind . He thinks it 's past dinner-time . Well , by George , thats not bad . Well , now that the gentleman has been attended to , I should like to know where we are . It may be a vulgar business habit ; but I confess I like to know where I am . Put that in your pipe and smoke it , my boy . I wonder what shes going to do with him . It 's no use shirking it , Pat . We 'd better know where we are . Whats that ? But what question ? Look here , Mr Percival : youre not supposed to insult my sister . Oh , very well . If you choose to give yourself away like that — to allow a man to call you unladylike and then to be unladylike , Ive nothing more to say . Ive nothing more to say ; and as I dont seem to be wanted here , I shall take myself off . You wont mention our little conversation , Miss Shepanoska . It 'll do no good ; and I 'd rather you didnt . Oh : is that so ? Well , theres no use my pretending to be surprised at you , Governor , is there ? I hope you got it as hot as I did . Mind , Miss Shepanoska : it wasnt lost on me . I 'm a thinking man . I kept my temper . Youll admit that . Thank you . Well , if a chump may have an opinion , I should put it at this . You make , I suppose , ten pounds a night off your own bat , Miss Lina ? Have you indeed ? I didnt know : youll excuse my mistake , I hope . But the principle is the same . Now I trust you wont be offended at what I 'm going to say ; but Ive thought about this and watched it in daily experience ; and you may take it from me that the moment a woman becomes pecuniarily independent , she gets hold of the wrong end of the stick in moral questions . Well , obviously , that independence for women is wrong and shouldnt be allowed . For their own good , you know . And for the good of morality in general . You agree with me , Lord Summerhays , dont you ? Now theres no need , you know , Governor , to worry mother with everything that passes .