“Well, go on, Clifford.”
“Well, it’s a little about”—he spoke in a low, gruff voice—“at least partly about hawking. You know, the thing historical people used to do—on their wrists.”
“Oh yes, I know, I know! I beg your pardon, Clifford.”
“With birds, you know,” he went on. “Oh, and I wanted to ask you, what time of the year do people hawk?”
“What time of the year? Oh, well, I should think almost any time, pretty well, whenever they liked, or whenever it was the fashion.”
“I see.” He made a note. “Well, I hope you won’t be fearfully bored, Bertha.”
“I say, Cliff, don’t apologise so much. Get on with it.”
“Well, you see, it’s a scene at a country inn to begin with.”
“Ah, I see. Yes, it would be,” she murmured.
“At a country inn, and this is how it begins. It’s at a country inn, you see. ‘Scene: a country inn. The mistress of the inn, a buxom-looking woman of middle age, is being busy about the inn. It is a country inn. She is making up the fire, polishing tankards, etc., drawing ale, etc. On extreme L. of stage is seated, near a tankard, a youth of some nineteen summers, who is sitting facing the audience, chin dropped, and apparently wrapped in thought.’”