TROTTER. Of course I do. Do you take me for a fool? Do you suppose I prefer popular melodramas? Have I not written most appreciative notices of them? But I say theyre not plays. Theyre not plays. I cant consent to remain in this house another minute if anything remotely resembling them is to be foisted on me as a play.
FANNY. I fully admit that theyre not plays. I only want you to tell my father that plays are not plays nowadays—not in your sense of the word.
TROTTER. Ah, there you go again! In my sense of the word! You believe that my criticism is merely a personal impression; that—
FANNY. You always said it was.
TROTTER. Pardon me: not on this point. If you had been classically educated—
FANNY. But I have.
TROTTER. Pooh! Cambridge! If you had been educated at Oxford, you would know that the definition of a play has been settled exactly and scientifically for two thousand two hundred and sixty years. When I say that these entertainments are not plays, I dont mean in my sense of the word, but in the sense given to it for all time by the immortal Stagirite.
FANNY. Who is the Stagirite?
TROTTER. [shocked] You dont know who the Stagirite was?
FANNY. Sorry. Never heard of him.