Blith. (aside). She means my “Treatise on Penmanship.” (Aloud.) I have had many testimonials from former pupils!
Mrs. S. (aside). A poet take pupils! (Aloud.) Do you really mean to say you can teach people to write as beautifully as you do?
Blith. (proudly). Much better! My hand is not so steady as it was twenty years ago!
Mrs. S. I am indeed glad to have met you, I once saw the top of Alfred Tennyson’s head from a balcony, and Swinburne’s boots outside his door at a Parisian hotel, but I never actually spoke to a great writer before!
Blith. Oh, ma’am, you make me blush!
Mrs. S. Do I? (Rapturously.) Blush on, oh! blush on, genius of the goosequill!
Blith. I never use them! Give me a good “Falcon” pen.
Mrs. S. Would it be too much to ask you to spare me one of your old pens—one with which you had dashed off some sweet sonnet!
Blith. (aside, uneasily). There’s lunacy in the family!
Mrs. S. I have known many Tompkins’s, but all were common creatures.