HORACE. My cigar case. I fancy I must have left it in my room. (_MINNIE runs L. to get it._) Wait a minute. Did I put it down as I came through the hall? (_MINNIE runs R._) Wait, wait, I’m not certain I took it out with me at all this morning, in which case it surely will be in my study. (_MINNIE runs L._) Now, don’t run about. You make me giddy. Do not run about. Have a thorough search. (_Exit MINNIE L._) AUNT. Horace, you are going too far. HORACE. Not I. I am stopping at home. AUNT. You know what I mean. With Minnie. HORACE. Ah, she’s a dear little girl. AUNT. She’s one in a thousand. HORACE. She is. AUNT. She’s much too good for you. HORACE. I don’t know about that. She’s quite good enough. AUNT. You are perfectly detestable. HORACE. Think so? AUNT. Yes, and you’re growing worse every day. (_Goes L._) You are simply wrapped up in selfishness, and egotism, and conceit. HORACE. Merely because I prefer a quiet evening to myself and my books? Because I prefer scientific discovery to heartless frivolity? Absurd. AUNT. You are forgetting your duty to the girl you are going to make your wife. You seem to think because she was adopted by your mother you have the right to order her about as if she were a servant. HORACE. You know you are talking absolute rot. AUNT. You make her feel her dependent position, and I think that very unfair. HORACE. But, hang it all, she is not dependent. My mother provided for her sufficiently. AUNT. Yes, I know, but everything comes from our family, and you never allow her to forget the fact. She considers she owes you a debt of gratitude. HORACE. If it comes to that—well, she does. AUNT. You ought never to let her feel that. You should try to win her heart. HORACE. Oh, bother. I have won her heart. We are engaged. AUNT. Then try to deserve it. HORACE. But I do deserve it. AUNT. Indeed! And pray, when are you going to marry her? HORACE. Oh, that’s all right. There’s no hurry about that. AUNT. No hurry? Horace, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. HORACE. (_AUNT goes L._) Now, my dear Aunt, don’t you think you are very unwise to try and precipitate matters? You have heard that people who marry in haste very often—— AUNT. (_Returning to table_) You’ll have plenty of leisure for repentance shortly, but it will be for quite a different reason. Minnie will wake up presently and see you as you really are. She is a most attractive girl. You’ll feel pretty miserable when you have lost her. HORACE. Ridiculous. Minnie knows when she is well off. Hullo. I could have sworn I felt in that pocket! (_Finds cigar case._) AUNT. What is it? (_Sees case. Aside_) Hopeless, hopeless. HORACE. That’s a bit of bad luck, isn’t it? AUNT. Bad luck? HORACE. I might have been smoking all this time. (_Lights up._) There’s nothing like a good cigar, after all. AUNT. There’s nothing like a good wife. HORACE. Well, of course I don’t know anything about that. AUNT. I believe you prefer the cigar.