ALICE (hurriedly). Very well, Matey, we agree--if the 'tip' is good enough. LADY CAROLINE. You will regret this. MATEY. I think not, my lady. It's this: I wouldn't go out to-night if he asks you. Go into the garden, if you like. The garden is all right. (He really believes this.) I wouldn't go farther--not to-night. MRS. COADE. But he never proposes to us to go farther. Why should he to-night? MATEY. I don't know, ma'am, but don't any of you go--(devilishly) except you, my lady; I should like you to go. LADY CAROLINE. Fellow! (They consider this odd warning.) ALICE. Shall I? (They nod and she tears up the telegram.) MATEY (with a gulp). Thank you, ma'am. LADY CAROLINE. You should have sent that telegram off. JOANNA. You are sure you have told us all you know, Matey? MATEY. Yes, miss. (But at the door he is more generous.) Above all, ladies, I wouldn't go into the wood. MABEL. The wood? Why, there is no wood within a dozen miles of here. MATEY. NO, ma'am. But all the same I wouldn't go into it, ladies--not if I was you. (With this cryptic warning he leaves them, and any discussion of it is prevented by the arrival of their host. LOB is very small, and probably no one has ever looked so old except some newborn child. To such as watch him narrowly, as the ladies now do for the first time, he has the effect of seeming to be hollow, an attenuated piece of piping insufficiently inflated; one feels that if he were to strike against a solid object he might rebound feebly from it, which would be less disconcerting if he did not obviously know this and carefully avoid the furniture; he is so light that the subject must not be mentioned in his presence, but it is possible that, were the ladies to combine, they could blow him out of a chair. He enters portentously, his hands behind his back, as if every bit of him, from his domed head to his little feet, were the physical expressions of the deep thoughts within him, then suddenly he whirls round to make his guests jump. This amuses him vastly, and he regains his gravity with difficulty. He addresses MRS. COADE.) LOB. Standing, dear lady? Pray be seated. (He finds a chair for her and pulls it away as she is about to sit, or kindly pretends to be about to do so, for he has had this quaint conceit every evening since she arrived.) MRS. COADE (who loves children). You naughty! LOB (eagerly). It is quite a flirtation, isn't it?