Jerome. Oh, Paul, you are making fun of me.
Paul Ruttledge. Of course I am only talking in parables. I think all the people I meet are like farmyard creatures, they have forgotten their freedom, their human bodies are a disguise, a pretence they keep up to deceive one another.
Jerome. [Sitting down.] What is wrong with you?
Paul Ruttledge. Oh, nothing of course. You see how happy I am. I have a good house and a good property, and my brother and his charming wife have come to look after me. You see the toys of their children here and everywhere. What should be wrong with me?
Jerome. I know you too well not to see that there is something wrong with you.
Paul Ruttledge. There is nothing except that I have been thinking a good deal lately.
Jerome. Perhaps your old dreams or visions or whatever they were have come back. They always made you restless. You ought to see more of your neighbours.
Paul Ruttledge. There's nothing interesting but human nature, and that's in the single soul, but these neighbours of mine they think in flocks and roosts.
Jerome. You are too hard on them. They are busy men, they hav'n't much time for thought, I daresay.
Paul Ruttledge. That's what I complain of. When I hear these people talking I always hear some organized or vested interest chirp or quack, as it does in the newspapers. Algie chirps. Even you, Jerome, though I have not found your armorial beast, are getting a little monastic; when I have found it I will put it among the others. There is a place for it there, but the worst of it is that it will take so long getting nice and green.