DAVID. They’ll catch you yet, lad.
JAMES. They’ll never catch me. You’ve been nearer catched yourself.
ALICK. Yes, Kitty Menzies, David.
DAVID [feeling himself under the umbrella]. It was a kind of a shave that.
ALICK [who knows all that is to be known about women and can speak of them without a tremor]. It’s a curious thing, but a man cannot help winking when he hears that one of his friends has been catched.
DAVID. That’s so.
JAMES [clinging to his manhood]. And fear of that wink is what has kept the two of us single men. And yet what’s the glory of being single?
DAVID. There’s no particular glory in it, but it’s safe.
JAMES [putting away his aspirations]. Yes, it’s lonely, but it’s safe. But who did you mean the poetry for, then?
DAVID. For Maggie, of course.