Culch. (overjoyed). You don't say so! Then all I can say, PODBURY, is that if we two can't manage, in a place like this, to recover all the ground we have lost—
Podb. More water than ground in a place like this, eh? But I know what you mean—we must be duffers if we don't leave Venice engaged men—which we're not as yet, worse luck!
Culch. No—but we shall be, if we only insist upon being treated seriously.
Podb. She treats me a devilish deal too seriously, my boy. But there, never mind—things will go better now!
SCENE—A double-bedded room in the Grand Hotel, Dandolo, which PODBURY and CULCHARD have to share for the night.
Podb. (from his bed, suspiciously, to CULCHARD, who is setting fire to a small pastille in a soap-dish). I say, old chappie, bar fireworks, you know! What the deuce are you up to over there?
Culch. Lighting a "fidibus." Splendid thing to drive out mosquitoes. (The pastille fizzes, and begins to emit a dense white smoke, and a suffocating odour.)
Podb. (bounding). Mosquitoes! It would drive a dragon out. Phew—ah! (CULCHARD closes the window.) You don't mean to say you're going to shut me up in this infernal reek on a stifling night like this?
Culch. If I didn't, the mosquitoes would come in again.
Podb. Come in? With that pastille doing the young Vesuvius! Do you think a mosquito's a born fool? (He jumps out and opens the window.) I'm not going to be smoked like a wasps' nest, I can tell you!