TARLETON. She'd have done that anyhow, my lad. We all grow old. Look at me! _[Seeing that the man is embarrassed by his pistol in fumbling for the photographs with his left hand in his breast pocket]_ Let me hold the gun for you. THE MAN. _[retreating to the worktable]_ Stand back. Do you take me for a fool? TARLETON. Well, youre a little upset, naturally. It does you credit. THE MAN. Look here, upon this picture and on this. _[He holds out the two photographs like a hand at cards, and points to them with the pistol]._ TARLETON. Good. Read Shakespear: he has a word for every occasion. _[He takes the photographs, one in each hand, and looks from one to the other, pleased and interested, but without any sign of recognition]_ What a pretty girl! Very pretty. I can imagine myself falling in love with her when I was your age. I wasnt a bad-looking young fellow myself in those days. _[Looking at the other]_ Curious that we should both have gone the same way. THE MAN. You and she the same way! What do you mean? TARLETON. Both got stout, I mean. THE MAN. Would you have had her deny herself food? TARLETON. No: it wouldnt have been any use. It's constitutional. No matter how little you eat you put on flesh if youre made that way. _[He resumes his study of the earlier photograph]._ THE MAN. Is that all the feeling that rises in you at the sight of the face you once knew so well? TARLETON. _[too much absorbed in the portrait to heed him]_ Funny that I cant remember! Let this be a lesson to you, young man. I could go into court tomorrow and swear I never saw that face before in my life if it wasnt for that brooch _[pointing to the photograph]._ Have you got that brooch, by the way? _[The man again resorts to his breast pocket]._ You seem to carry the whole family property in that pocket. THE MAN. _[producing a brooch]_ Here it is to prove my bona fides. TARLETON. _[pensively putting the photographs on the table and taking the brooch]_ I bought that brooch in Cheapside from a man with a yellow wig and a cast in his left eye. Ive never set eyes on him from that day to this. And yet I remember that man; and I cant remember your mother. THE MAN. Monster! Without conscience! without even memory! You left her to her shame-- TARLETON. _[throwing the brooch on the table and rising pepperily]_ Come, come, young man! none of that. Respect the romance of your mother's youth. Dont you start throwing stones at her. I dont recall her features just at this moment; but Ive no doubt she was kind to me and we were happy together. If you have a word to say against her, take yourself out of my house and say it elsewhere. THE MAN. What sort of a joker are you? Are you trying to put me in the wrong, when you have to answer to me for a crime that would make every honest man spit at you as you passed in the street if I were to make it known? TARLETON. You read a good deal, dont you?