BROOME. Then you've got someone to keep you. LEONARD. No, Mr. Broome. No. BROOME. Then how are you going to get along? LEONARD. That's just what's been bothering us. BROOME. You're a cool customer. LEONARD. And how do you propose to get along, Mr. Broome? BROOME. It's them bloomin' taxis that's done for me. MARY. Can't you drive one, father? BROOME. They wouldn't give me a try if I wanted. And I don't want. I wouldn't touch the things. LEONARD. You've had the bad luck to be attached to a decaying industry. BROOME. Decaying my eye! There's no call for it to decay. LEONARD. You don't hold with modern notions--progress and things, Mr. Broome? BROOME. I don't hold with taxis. They'll find out their mistake. MRS. BROOME. He will talk like that. BROOME. And so would you if you'd druv a cab twenty-nine years. MARY. But the taxis go faster, father, and you've only got to pay the same. BROOME. Never mind that. Why should they injure a established trade? Why should they spoil other trades? What's a country without its trades? MRS. BROOME. That's the way he talks. BROOME. Mark my words. They'll find out their mistake. Look what's coming to the breed of horses. Look at nosebags. LEONARD. Nosebags? BROOME. Ay. I've been told of a firm as used to turn out a matter of two hundred nosebags a week and now they don't do fifty. MRS. BROOME. He may get taken on at a mews. BROOME. Mews's days are numbered. LEONARD. The young generation is knocking at our doors, Mr. Broome. BROOME. What? LEONARD. Yours is an interesting type of Conservatism. BROOME. I'm not a Conservative. I'm a radical. MRS. BROOME. You voted Tory last time. BROOME. Yes, and what have they done for me? I don't hold with Socialism but I may be druv to it. MRS. BROOME. We came to hear about you, Mary? BROOME. And what's your perfession, sir, if I may ask? LEONARD. Well, it's rather hard to define, Mr. Broome. What am I, Mary? MARY. He writes things. BROOME. What things? LEONARD. Well, shall we say--sketches, critical impressions, verses, even stories. BROOME. Hardly work for a man is it? MARY. Now--father! LEONARD. Perhaps not. You see, Mr. Broome, you and I are at the opposite ends. Without offence, I hope, I referred to yours as a decaying industry. With me it's the other way. They're not ready for me. BROOME. It don't pay? LEONARD. At present it can hardly be said to pay. BROOME. Well, you can lend me a couple of sovereigns, anyhow? MARY. } { Father! } [_Together._] MRS. BROOME. } { Nonsense. LEONARD. I should be charmed, Mr. Broome, but I haven't got them. I was just wondering whether I might borrow five pounds from you. BROOME. Right. I just wanted to know how the land lies-- MARY. [_To LEONARD._] Won't you go for the doctor now? LEONARD. Yes, I will. [_He takes his hat._] MARY. You'll come back with him? LEONARD. Yes, if he can come. Good-bye for the present, Mrs. Broome. [_He goes out airily._]