The Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith

by Arthur Wing Pinero

SIR GEORGE. Really!

KIRKE. A bachelor; this Mrs Thorpe keeps house for him. She's a widow.

SIR GEORGE. Really?

KIRKE. Widow of a captain in the army. Poor thing! She's lately lost her only child and can't get over it.

SIR GEORGE. Indeed, really, really? . . . but about Cleeve, now—he had Roman fever of rather a severe type?

KIRKE. In November. And then that fool of a Bickerstaff at Rome allowed the woman to move him to Florence too soon, and there he had a relapse. However, when she brought him on here the man was practically well.

SIR GEORGE. The difficulty being to convince him of the fact, eh? A highly-strung, emotional creature?

KIRKE. You've hit him.

SIR GEORGE. I've known him from his childhood. Are you still giving him anything?

KIRKE. A little quinine, to humour him.