STRAKER. It wasn't Voltaire: it was Bow Mar Shay. TANNER. I stand corrected: Beaumarchais of course. Now you seem to think that what is too delicate to be said can be whistled. Unfortunately your whistling, though melodious, is unintelligible. Come! there's nobody listening: neither my genteel relatives nor the secretary of your confounded Union. As man to man, Enry, why do you think that my friend has no chance with Miss Whitefield? STRAKER. Cause she's arter summun else. TANNER. Bosh! who else? STRAKER. You. TANNER. Me!!! STRAKER. Mean to tell me you didn't know? Oh, come, Mr Tanner! TANNER. [in fierce earnest] Are you playing the fool, or do you mean it? STRAKER. [with a flash of temper] I'm not playin no fool. [More coolly] Why, it's as plain as the nose on your face. If you ain't spotted that, you don't know much about these sort of things. [Serene again] Ex-cuse me, you know, Mr Tanner; but you asked me as man to man; and I told you as man to man. TANNER. [wildly appealing to the heavens] Then I--I am the bee, the spider, the marked down victim, the destined prey. STRAKER. I dunno about the bee and the spider. But the marked down victim, that's what you are and no mistake; and a jolly good job for you, too, I should say. TANNER. [momentously] Henry Straker: the moment of your life has arrived. STRAKER. What d'y'mean? TANNER. That record to Biskra. STRAKER. [eagerly] Yes? TANNER. Break it. STRAKER. [rising to the height of his destiny] D'y'mean it? TANNER. I do. STRAKER. When? TANNER. Now. Is that machine ready to start? STRAKER. [quailing] But you can't-- TANNER. [cutting him short by getting into the car] Off we go. First to the bank for money; then to my rooms for my kit; then to your rooms for your kit; then break the record from London to Dover or Folkestone; then across the channel and away like mad to Marseilles, Gibraltar, Genoa, any port from which we can sail to a Mahometan country where men are protected from women. STRAKER. Garn! you're kiddin. TANNER. [resolutely] Stay behind then. If you won't come I'll do it alone. [He starts the motor]. STRAKER. [running after him] Here! Mister! arf a mo! steady on! [he scrambles in as the car plunges forward]. ACT III Evening in the Sierra Nevada. Rolling slopes of brown, with olive trees instead of apple trees in the cultivated patches, and occasional prickly pears instead of gorse and bracken in the wilds. Higher up, tall stone peaks and precipices, all handsome and distinguished. No wild nature here: rather a most aristocratic mountain landscape made by a fastidious artist-creator. No vulgar profusion of vegetation: even a touch of aridity in the frequent patches of stones: Spanish magnificence and Spanish economy everywhere.