[_With effrontery._] You have only to envelop Lady Sellenger in your arms, and the picture will be complete. GERALD. Would you kindly explain this incident? BLENKINSOP. If you’ll allow me to say so, I really can’t see that it’s any business of yours. GERALD. [_Hotly._] Look here, Blenkinsop, you’ve got no right to play your fool-tricks with Mrs. Dot. She’s a very excitable and thoughtless woman. She’s.... BLENKINSOP. Well? GERALD. Oh, damn you! BLENKINSOP. Not at all, not at all. GERALD. [_Angrily._] What the deuce is the meaning of all this tomfoolery? BLENKINSOP. [_Blandly._] I suppose you couldn’t be a little more civil, could you? GERALD. Look here, Blenkinsop, the best thing you can do is to receive a telegram that requires your immediate presence in town. BLENKINSOP. Thanks very much, but I’m extremely comfortable down here. GERALD. You’d be rather surprised if I threw you out of the window, wouldn’t you? BLENKINSOP. I should not only be surprised, but I should look upon it as an odious familiarity. GERALD. Would you like to know my private opinion of you? BLENKINSOP. Spare me my blushes, dear boy. It always embarrasses me to be flattered to my face. GERALD. You silly old fool. BLENKINSOP. I believe you’re considerably annoyed. GERALD. Not in the least. What the dickens is there about you that should annoy me? BLENKINSOP. Now that I come to think of it, you are certainly in a passion. Your face is red, your attire is disordered, and you have a slight squint in your eye. GERALD. My dear fellow, if I hadn’t the best temper in the world, I should kick you. BLENKINSOP. You’d far better go and lie down. You’ll only say something which you’ll regret. GERALD. I suppose you’re not for a moment under the impression that Mrs. Dot cares twopence about you. BLENKINSOP. May I ask how that can in the least concern you? GERALD. Mrs. Dot is an old friend of mine. I’m not going to see her made ridiculous by a conceited nincompoop. BLENKINSOP. By the way, has it slipped your memory that you’re engaged to Miss Sellenger? GERALD. Good Lord, no! BLENKINSOP. I daresay you wish it had. GERALD. That’s a confounded impertinent thing to say. BLENKINSOP. My dear fellow, I never saw any one with less common sense in my life. Surely it’s not very extraordinary that the same tender passion which inflames the chaste breasts of yourself and Miss Sellenger, should attack the equally chaste breasts of myself and Mrs. Worthley. GERALD. Don’t talk such twaddle. BLENKINSOP. I suppose you’d be considerably astonished if I told you that I’d just asked Mrs. Dot to be my wife. GERALD. She must have screamed with laughter. BLENKINSOP. You noticed her unconcealed hilarity when you came in. GERALD. [_Going up to him quickly._] You don’t mean it! BLENKINSOP. No man is quite safe from the toils of women till he’s safely in his grave. And even then a feminine worm probably makes a dead set at him. GERALD.