Mrs. Dot: A Farce

by W. Somerset Maugham

[Quickly.] Which one?

Blenkinsop.

Ours, of course. Three guineas gone bang, my dear.

Mrs. Dot.

[Counting on her fingers.] I’m reckoning how many bottles of beer the British public will have to drink for us to buy another.

Blenkinsop.

But your refusal of my hand will happily prevent you from going to that expense. Thereby considerably forwarding the cause of temperance.

Mrs. Dot.

[With an assumption of overwhelming gravity.]