[Phœbe enters to announce dinner.
Mr. Toov. Dinner, eh? Yes, yes, dinner, to be sure. Mr. Curphew, will you take in my dau——(correcting himself)—oh, but, dear me, I was quite forgetting that—h'm!——
Curph. ——that Mrs. Toovey has been expressing an ardent impatience to close your doors on me for ever?
Mrs. Toov. (not over graciously). That was before—— I mean that—considering the manner in which we all of us seem to have been more or less mixed up with the music-hall of late—we can't afford to be too particular. If Mr. Wildfire chooses to stay, he will find as warm a welcome as—(with a gulp)—he can expect!
Curph. Many thanks, but I'm sure you see that I can't stay here on sufferance. If I do stay it must be as——
Mrs. T. As one of the family! (She chokes.) That—that's understood, of course. (To herself.) They know too much!
Mr. T. (to Mrs. T., chirpily, as the others precede them in to dinner). Do you know, my love, I'd no more idea you would ever have—— Well, well, it might have been worse, I daresay. But we must never let it get out about the music-hall, eh?
Mrs. T. Well, Pa, I'm not very likely to allude to it!
The End.