JAMES [with terrible irony]. And your prize for moral philosophy?
JOHN [recklessly]. All gone whistling down the wind.
DAVID. I suppose you understand that you’ll have to resign your seat.
JOHN [his underlip much in evidence]. There are hundreds of seats, but there’s only one John Shand.
MAGGIE [but we don’t hear her]. That’s how I like to hear him speak.
DAVID [the ablest person in the room]. Think, man, I’m old by you, and for long I’ve had a pride in you. It will be beginning the world again with more against you than there was eight years ago.
JOHN. I have a better head to begin it with than I had eight years ago.
ALICK [hoping this will bite]. She’ll have her own money, David!
JOHN. She’s as poor as a mouse.
JAMES [thinking possibly of his Elizabeth’s mother]. We’ll go to her friends, and tell them all. They’ll stop it.