AGATHA. ‘Unfortunately he missed.’
LORD LOAM. Eh?
AGATHA. ‘But by great good luck I heard his cries’—
LORD LOAM. My cries?
AGATHA.—‘and rushing forward with drawn knife, I stabbed the monster to the heart.’
(LORD LOAM shuts his book with a pettish slam. There might be a scene here were it not that CRICHTON reappears and goes to one of the glass cases. All are at once on the alert and his lordship is particularly sly.)
LORD LOAM. Anything in the papers, Catherine?
CATHERINE. No, father, nothing—nothing at all.
ERNEST (it pops out as of yore). The papers! The papers are guides that tell us what we ought to do, and then we don’t do it.
(CRICHTON having opened the glass case has taken out the bucket, and ERNEST, looking round for applause, sees him carrying it off and is undone. For a moment of time he forgets that he is no longer on the island, and with a sigh he is about to follow CRICHTON and the bucket to a retired spot. The door closes, and ERNEST comes to himself.)