“Whew!” repeated Mr. Flippance, scrambling out. “I know now what Lady Agnes felt like. ‘_Help, Lovel!—Father, help!—I faint—I die—Oh! Oh!_’ But I’m disappointed in Polly,” he added, diving under a chair. “Fancy being all her life on the stage, and not espying these slippers!” He dug his feet into them. “There’s no time for joking,” said Duke anxiously, as he tugged open the drawer of a desk in his “parlour.” “I suppose Jinny is in the know?” “Jinny’s come as arbitrator!” “What!” Duke wheeled round, his hair still more on end. “Get on with your mystery-desk. It stands to reason a runaway financial imagination like yours needs a brake.” “Ain’t you brake enough?” Mr. Duke’s tone was bitter. “And you want me to be broke!” retorted Tony. “I give you my beautiful marionettes, life-sized and life-painted, all carved by the best maker——” “Oh, I know all about that!” interrupted Duke impatiently. “Well, you’re not going to deny your own skill, I hope?” Duke glared impotently with his little pig-eyes. “And with the costliest costumes,” Tony went on blandly. “And all these puppets moreover with the latest mechanical contrivances, regardless of expense——” “And don’t I give you the finest goodwill in East Anglia,” burst in Mr. Duke, “the Flippance Fit-Up with all its plays, prestige, and unique takings?” “One thing at a time, old cock. Packed into a box that itself opens out and forms part of the stage, combining portability of props with——” “Do dry up!” cried the maddened Duke. “If you’re not quick, Bianca will be back.” “What’s that to me? To cut it short, I give you the finest marionette show in the world, with scenery, sky-borders, and plays complete, and an old-established reputation, a show that has played before the crowned heads of Europe, America, and Australia, and, like the workhouse boy in Mr. Dickens’s book, you ask for more. What say _you_, Jinny? Thinkest thou the Duke should have more?” “We all want more,” said Jinny. “Air! Mayn’t I open the window?” “Oh, excuse me.” Mr. Duke, evidently trained by his big doll, rushed to do it. “But haven’t I lost enough without losing my twenty-five pounds too?” He turned back to his desk, and extricating from its remoter recesses another large narrow fat account book—the twin of that he had been poring over—held it up theatrically. “Here’s my marionette accounts for sixteen years—look through ’em and see if you can find any single week—ay, even the week of King William’s funeral—as low as the best of the weeks since I touched your wretched show.” “My wretched show!” Mr. Flippance lost his blandness. “Why, if that’s the case, it’s you that have depreciated it. _You_ ought to pay _me_ compensation.”