Hanno: Ah! Ah! Ah!... Oh! [with a grunt]. Bethaal, it’s you, is it?
Bethaal: Gouty?
Hanno [after saying nothing for some time]: ’Xtraordinary thing.... Nothing in the papers.
Bethaal: Nothing odd about that! [He laughs rather loudly, and Hanno, who wishes he had said the witty thing, smirks gently without enthusiasm. Then he proceeds on another track.] I find plenty in the papers! [He puffs like a grampus.]
Hanno: Plenty about yourself!... That’s the only good of politics, and precious little good either.... What I can’t conceive—as you do happen to be the in’s and not the out’s—is why you don’t send more men from somewhere; he has asked for them often enough.
Bethaal [wisely]: They’re all against it; couldn’t get anyone to agree but little Schem [laughs loudly]; he’d agree to anything.
Hanno [wagging his head sagely]: He’ll be Suffete, my boy! He’ll be a Sephad all right! He’s my sister’s own boy.
Bethaal [surlily]: Shouldn’t wonder! All you Hannos get the pickings.
Hanno: You talk like a book.... Anyhow, what about the reinforcements?—that does interest me.
Bethaal [wearily]: Oh, really. I’ve heard about it until I’m tired. It isn’t the reinforcements that are wanted really; it’s money, and plenty of it. That’s what it is. [He looks about the room in search for a word.] That’s what it is. [He continues to look about the room.] That’s what it is ... er ... really. [Having found the word Bethaal is content, and Hanno remains silent for a few minutes, then:]