“Who does?” asks Bella, pertly.
“Who finds mushrooms in a field?” asks Chilvern, who has been engaged in this lately.
“Give it up,” says Milburd. That's the worst of Milburd, when a conversation is beginning to promise some results, he nips it in the bud with the frost of his nonsense.
Bella asks what Mr. Chilvern was going to say. He has nearly forgotten, but recalls it to his mind, on Cazell repeating the word mushrooms.
“Ah, yes,” says Chilvern, evidently feeling that the brilliancy of his simile has been taken off by the interruption. “I was going to say à propos of Miss Bella's remark about no one gaining any information from conversation——”
“I didn't say that, Mr. Chilvern.”
No, of course not. We all side with Miss Bella.
Chilvern nowhere. “Ah, well,” he says, “I thought you did.”
“And if I had?” asks Miss Bella, triumphantly.
“Eh!—well, if you had—” Chilvern meditates, and then answers, “—if you had, why then I was going to say that . . . .” here he breaks off and finishes, “—well, it doesn't matter now, but it was very good when I first thought of it.”