CONJURER. Why are nice men such asses? [_Turns to arrange the table._] That seems all right. The pack of cards that is a pack of cards. And the pack of cards that isn't a pack of cards. The hat that looks like a gentleman's hat. But which, in reality, is no gentleman's hat. Only my hat; and I am not a gentleman. I am only a conjurer, and this is only a conjurer's hat. I could not take off this hat to a lady. I can take rabbits out of it, goldfish out of it, snakes out of it. Only I mustn't take my own head out of it. I suppose I'm a lower animal than a rabbit or a snake. Anyhow they can get out of the conjurer's hat; and I can't. I am a conjurer and nothing else but a conjurer. Unless I could show I was something else, and that would be worse. [_He begins to dash the cards rather irregularly about the table. Enter_ PATRICIA. PATRICIA. [_Coldly_] I beg your pardon. I came to get some programmes. My uncle wants them. [_She walks swiftly across and takes up the programmes._ CONJURER. [_Still dashing cards about the table._] Miss Carleon, might I speak to you a moment? [_He puts his hands in his pockets, stares at the table; and his face assumes a sardonic expression._] The question is purely practical. PATRICIA. [_Pausing at the door._] I can hardly imagine what the question can be. CONJURER. I am the question. PATRICIA. And what have I to do with that? CONJURER. You have everything to do with it. I am the question: you.... PATRICIA. [_Angrily._] Well, what am I? CONJURER. You are the answer. PATRICIA. The answer to what? CONJURER. [_Coming round to the front of the table and sitting against it._] The answer to me. You think I'm a liar because I walked about the fields with you and said I could make stones disappear. Well, so I can. I'm a conjurer. In mere point of fact, it wasn't a lie. But if it had been a lie I should have told it just the same. I would have told twenty such lies. You may or may not know why. PATRICIA. I know nothing about such lies. [_She puts her hand on the handle of the door, but the_ CONJURER, _who is sitting on the table and staring at his boots, does not notice the action, and goes on as in a sincere soliloquy._ CONJURER. I don't know whether you have any notion of what it means to a man like me to talk to a lady like you, even on false pretences. I am an adventurer. I am a blackguard, if one can earn the title by being in all the blackguard societies of the world. I have thought everything out by myself, when I was a guttersnipe in Fleet Street, or, lower still, a journalist in Fleet Street. Before I met you I never guessed that rich people ever thought at all. Well, that is all I have to say. We had some good conversations, didn't we? I am a liar. But I told you a great deal of the truth. [_He turns and resumes the arrangement of the table._