Mr. W. (regretfully). I used to enjoy a cigar.
Mrs. W. You were a bibber of wine. Was it not so?
Mr. W. (regretfully). A glass of port now and then was very pleasant to me.
Mrs. W. It was such as you that my parents hated. It was such as you they loved to reform. It is the custom of some to erect to the memory of their parents costly monuments of marble, and gaudy windows of perishable glass. I erected you. Say, have I altered you? Do you smoke now?
Mr. W. (very mournfully). I do not.
Mrs. W. Where is your cellar of port?
Mr. W. In my cellar. It has remained there, my love, since, twenty years ago, you appropriated the key; and (with a groan) it must be in very fine condition.
Mrs. W. Ay! you can still think of the condition of your port; lucky for you that I have thought of your condition. You are a mausoleum, Mr. Watmuff, of which my parents may feel justly proud. Their tomb will not be neglected during the lifetime of their daughter. My decision with regard to Walter Litherland is one more immortelle woven, by loving hands to their memory. You are a mausoleum, Mr. Watmuff. (Exit Mrs. Watmuff, door L.)
Mr. W. A mausoleum, am I? I wish they'd put a railing round me then, and keep me isolated. I'm always being railed at. Why, if I'm regarded from that point of view, can't I be railed in? I haven't the privileges of a family vault. I'm only a common grave, walked over and trampled on by everybody. It's too bad. It would be rough enough on a grave, but on flesh and blood it's outrageous. And when I think of that cellar of port, d—d if I don't wish I was buried—with it. How crusty it must be now! As crusty, I expect, as I ought to be if I only dared to show my teeth.
(Enter Ferdinand Swift, door R.)