Fred (aside). I wish he wouldn’t look so confoundedly affectionate.
Sel. Now you understand? Here’s the letter and there’s the hat. (Putting them into his hands.) I’m off to dress while you go and buy a directory!
Fred. Buy a directory! I don’t want to buy a directory! I hate directories!
Sel. You should have thought of that before you saved my life.
(Exit Selwyn, R. U. E.
Fred. I have had three months of this sort of thing. I came to London for pleasure and I have suffered slavery ever since. I hadn’t been in town two days when looking over the Serpentine Bridge I beheld a man struggling in the water. I was weak enough to rescue him, and he immediately proved so oppressively grateful that I have never been able to escape from his clutches from that day to this. I would have gone back to Bristol long ago, but there’s my dear little Lottie Blithers to whom I am secretly married and whom I would not desert for untold gold. She keeps a glove shop in Bond street and I pass most of my time in purchasing her stock in trade. This sort of thing can’t go on much longer!
Sel. (re-entering, R. U. E.). What! Not gone yet? Suppose my wife were to return or that Tompkins should turn up.
Fred (protesting). That’s all very well, but——?
Sel. There’s no time for “butting” now!
Fred. Damn it! You don’t want me to go without a coat, do you? (He places on the escritoire the hat that Selwyn had given him and goes off into his room, L. 2 E.)