MRS. CULVER. Yes. Have you heard anything special?
CULVER. No. But I've seen something special. I saw it less than an hour ago. It was shown to me without the slightest warning, and I admit it shook me. You can perceive for yourselves that it shook me.
MRS. CULVER. But what?
CULVER. The New Year's Honours List—or rather a few choice selections from the more sensational parts of it.
Enter Hildegarde.
MRS. CULVER. Arthur, what do you mean? ( To Hildegarde, in despair .) My chick, your father grows more and more puzzling every day! How well that shawl suits you! You look quite a different girl. But you've—( arranges the shawl on Hildegarde) I really don't know what your father has on his mind! I really don't!
JOHN ( impatient of this feminine manifestation ). Oh, dad, go on. Go on! I want to get at the bottom of this titles business. I'm hanged if I can understand it. What strikes me as an unprejudiced observer is that titles are supposed to be such a terrific honour, and yet the people who deal them out scarcely ever keep any for themselves. Look at Mr. Gladstone, for instance. He must have made about forty earls and seven thousand baronets in his time. Now if I was a
Prime Minister, and I believed in titles—which I jolly well don't—I should make myself a duke right off; and I should have several marquises and viscounts round me in the Cabinet like a sort of bodyguard, and my private secretaries would have to be knights. There'd be some logic in that arrangement anyhow.
CULVER. In view of your political career, John, will you mind if I give you a brief lesson on elementary politics—though you are on your holidays?
JOHN ( easily ). I'm game.