EDMUND. Nonsense. Be supine and they'll tread on you. You've only your own slackness to blame for it if you're flouted.
AUSTIN. That, again, is the view of our time. We're old codgers to-day, Edmund, you and I.
EDMUND. Confound it, Austin, you're not going to take this lying down!
AUSTIN. No. I shall fight the fight of my generation against the next. I shall lose, of course.
EDMUND. You mustn't lose.
AUSTIN. Why should I be an exception to a natural law?
EDMUND. Natural law! Natural laziness, you mean. You've simply let your children get out of hand through sheer weakness, and if you don't care to exert yourself to save Elsie from a gross mésalliance, I will.
AUSTIN. Why's it a mésalliance?
EDMUND. Good heavens, man—a footballer!
AUSTIN. There spoke the acclimatized Londoner. Black-ton won't be scandalized like Sevenoaks.