MRS. HOPE. There you are on your high horse! I do wish you had a little common-sense, Tom!
COLONEL. I'd as soon you asked me to sneak about eavesdropping!
Pump!
MRS. HOPE. Well, what were you looking at these papers for? It does drive me so wild the way you throw away all the chances you have of making a little money. I've got you this opportunity, and you do nothing but rave up and down, and talk nonsense!
COLONEL. [In a high voice] Much you know about it! I 've taken a thousand shares in this mine—
[He stops dead. There is a silence. ]
MRS. HOPE. You 've—WHAT? Without consulting me? Well, then, you 'll just go and take them out again!
COLONEL. You want me to——?
MRS. HOPE. The idea! As if you could trust your judgment in a thing like that! You 'll just go at once and say there was a mistake; then we 'll talk it over calmly.
COLONEL. [Drawing himself up.] Go back on what I 've said? Not if I lose every penny! First you worry me to take the shares, and then you worry me not—I won't have it, Nell, I won't have it!
MRS. HOPE. Well, if I'd thought you'd have forgotten what you said this morning and turned about like this, d'you suppose I'd have spoken to you at all? Now, do you?