BARTHWICK. Ah! You must be very careful whom you speak to in these days.
MRS. BARTHWICK. I did n't answer him, of course. But I could see at once that he wasn't telling the truth.
BARTHWICK. [Cracking a nut.] There's one very good rule—look at their eyes.
JACK. Crackers, please, Dad.
BARTHWICK. [Passing the crackers.] If their eyes are straight-forward I sometimes give them sixpence. It 's against my principles, but it's most difficult to refuse. If you see that they're desperate, and dull, and shifty-looking, as so many of them are, it's certain to mean drink, or crime, or something unsatisfactory.
MRS. BARTHWICK. This man had dreadful eyes. He looked as if he could commit a murder. "I 've 'ad nothing to eat to-day," he said. Just like that.
BARTHWICK. What was William about? He ought to have been waiting.
JACK. [Raising his wine-glass to his nose.] Is this the '63, Dad?
[BARTHWICK, holding his wine-glass to his eye, lowers it and passes it before his nose.]
MRS. BARTHWICK. I hate people that can't speak the truth. [Father and son exchange a look behind their port.] It 's just as easy to speak the truth as not. I've always found it easy enough. It makes it impossible to tell what is genuine; one feels as if one were continually being taken in.