Wedgecroft. Nonsense. What age are you now ... forty-six ... forty-seven?
Trebell. Well ... let's instance a good man. Gladstone had done his best work by sixty-five. Then he began to be popular. Think of his last years of oratory.
He has gone to his table and now very methodically starts to tidy his papers, Wedgecroft still watching him.
Wedgecroft. You'd have had to thank Heaven for a little that there were more lives than one to lead.
Trebell. That's another of your faults, Gilbert ... it's a comfort just now to enumerate them. You're an anarchist ... a kingdom to yourself. You make little treaties with Truth and with Beauty, and what can disturb you? I'm a part of the machine I believe in. If my life as I've made it is to be cut short ... the rest of me shall walk out of the world and slam the door ... with the noise of a pistol shot.
Wedgecroft. [Concealing some uneasiness.] Then I'm glad it's not to be cut short. You and your cabinet rank and your disestablishment bill!
Trebell starts to enjoy his secret.
Trebell. Yes ... our minds have been much relieved within the last half hour, haven't they?
Wedgecroft. I scribbled Horsham a note in a messenger office and sent it as soon as O'Connell had left me.
Trebell. He'd be glad to get that.