_Archie Bearpark_ (_disappointed_). Why, there's a mat at the bottom of the stairs! Well, if you won't, let's get up a cushion fight, then. Bertie and I will choose sides. Pilliner, I'll toss you for first pick up--come out of that, do. _Bertie Pilliner_ (_lazily_). Thanks, I'm much too comfy where I am. And I don't see any point in romping and rumpling one's hair just before lunch. _Archie Bearpark._ Well, you _are_ slack. And there's a good hour still before lunch. Thicknesse, _you_ suggest something, there's a dear old chap. _Captain Thicknesse_ (_after a mental effort_). Suppose we all go and have another look round at the gees--eh, what? _Bertie Pilliner._ I beg to oppose. Do let's show _some_ respect for the privacy of the British hunter. Why should I go and smack them on their fat backs, and feel every one of their horrid legs twice in one morning? I shouldn't like a horse coming into my bedroom at all hours to smack _me_ on the back. I should _hate_ it! _Mrs. Brooke-Chatteris._ I love them--dear things! But still, it's so wet, and it would mean going up and changing our shoes too--perhaps Lady Rhoda---- [Lady RHODA _flatly declines to stir before lunch_. _Captain Thicknesse_ (_resentfully_). Only thought it was better than loafin' about, that's all. (_To himself._) I do bar a woman who's afraid of a little mud. (_He saunters up to_ Miss SPELWANE _and absently pulls the ear of a Japanese spaniel on her knee_.) Poo' little fellow, then! _Miss Spelwane._ Poor little fellow? On _my_ lap! _Captain Thicknesse._ Oh, it--ah--didn't occur to me that he was on _your_ lap. He don't seem to mind _that_. _Miss Spelwane._ No? _How_ forbearing of him! Would you mind not standing quite so much in my light? I can't see my work. _Captain Thicknesse_ (_to himself, retreating_). That girl's always fishin' for compliments. I didn't rise _that_ time, though. It's precious slow here. I've a good mind to say I must get back to Aldershot this afternoon. [_He wanders aimlessly about the room_; ARCHIE BEARPARK _looks out of window with undisguised boredom_. _Lady Rhoda._ I say, if none of you are goin' to be more amusin' than this, you may as well go back to your billiards again. _Bertie Pilliner._ Dear Lady Rhoda, how cruel of you! You'll have to let _me_ stay. I'll be _so_ good. Look here, I'll read aloud to you. I _can_--quite prettily. What shall it be? You don't care? No more do I. I'll take the first that comes. (_He reaches for the nearest volume on a table close by._) How _too_ delightful! Poetry--which I know you _all_ adore. [_He turns over the leaves._ _Lady Rhoda._ If you ask _me_, I simply loathe it. _Bertie Pilliner._ Ah, but then you never heard _me_ read it, you know. Now, here is a choice little bit, stuck right up in a corner, as if it had been misbehaving itself. "Disenchantment" it's called. [_He reads._