LADY CAROLINE. Let me hold the darling match. MATEY. Tidy-looking Petitey Corona, this. There was a time when one of that sort would have run away with two days of my screw. LADY CAROLINE. How I should have loved, Jim, to know you when you were poor. Fancy your having once been a clerk. MATEY (remembering Napoleon and others). We all have our beginnings. But it wouldn't have mattered how I began, Caroliny: I should have come to the top just the same. (Becoming a poet himself.) I am a climber and there are nails in my boots for the parties beneath me. Boots! I tell you if I had been a bootmaker, I should have been the first bootmaker in London. LADY CAROLINE (a humourist at last). I am sure you would, Jim; but should you have made the best boots? MATEY (uxoriously wishing that others could have heard this). Very good. Caroliny; that is the nearest thing I have heard you say. But it's late; we had best be strolling back to our Rolls-Royce. LADY CAROLINE (as they rise). I do hope the ground wasn't damp. MATEY. Don't matter if it was; I was lying on your rug. (Indeed we notice now that he has had all the rug, and she the bare ground. JOANNA reaches the glade, now an unhappy lady who has got what she wanted. She is in country dress and is unknown to them as they are to her.) Who is the mournful party? JOANNA (hesitating). I wonder, sir, whether you happen to have seen my husband? I have lost him in the wood. MATEY. We are strangers in these parts ourselves, missis. Have we passed any one, Caroliny? LADY CAROLINE (coyly). Should we have noticed, dear? Might it be that old gent over there? (After the delightful manner of those happily wed she has already picked up many of her lover's favourite words and phrases.) JOANNA. Oh no, my husband is quite young. (The woodlander referred to is MR COADE in gala costume; at his mouth a whistle he has made him from some friendly twig. To its ravishing music he is seen pirouetting charmingly among the trees, his new occupation.) MATEY (signing to the unknown that he is wanted). Seems a merry old cock. Evening to you, sir. Do you happen to have seen a young gentleman in the wood lately, all by himself, and looking for his wife? COADE (with a flourish of his legs). Can't say I have. JOANNA (dolefully). He isn't necessarily by himself; and I don't know that he is looking for me. There may be a young lady with him. (The more happily married lady smiles, and Joanna is quick to take offence.) JOANNA. What do you mean by that? LADY CAROLINE (neatly). Oho--if you like that better. MATEY. Now, now, now--your manners, Caroliny. COADE. Would he be singing or dancing? JOANNA. Oh no--at least, I hope not. COADE (an artist to the tips). Hope not? Odd! If he is doing neither I am not likely to notice him, but if I do, what name shall I say? JOANNA (gloating not). Purdie; I am Mrs. Purdie.