The Big Drum: A Comedy in Four Acts

by Arthur Wing Pinero

Certainly.

Sir Randle.

[To Sir Timothy.] If our profound sympathy is the smallest consolation to you——

Sir Timothy.

[Emphatically, raising his head.] It is not. [With a despairing gesture.] I'm broken-hearted, Sir Randle. That's what I am; I'm broken-hearted.

Lady Filson.

[Sitting in the low-backed arm-chair on the left.] Oh, dear!

Sir Timothy.

[Sighing.] If I'd had the pluck to declare myself sooner, it might have been different. [Staring before him.] From the moment I first set eyes on her, at the dinner-party you gave to welcome her on her arrival in London—from that moment I was captured completely, body and soul. The sight of her as she stood in the drawing-room beside her mother, with her pretty, white face and her elegant figure, and a gown clinging to her that looked as though she'd been born in it—'twill never fade from me if I live to be as old as a dozen Methuselahs!

Sir Randle.