_Col. G._ I don't care what I am, so I do what's right. I'm sick of all that kind of thing. What I want is bare honesty. I believe I'm a tory as yet, but I should be a radical to-morrow if I thought justice lay on that side.--If a man falls in love with a woman, why shouldn't he marry her? _Mrs. C._ She may be unfit for him. _Col. G._ How should he fall in love with her, then? Men don't fall in love with birds. _Mrs. C._ It's a risk--a great risk. _Col. G._ None the greater that he pleases himself, and all the more worth taking. I wish my poor boy-- _Mrs. C._ Your poor boy might please himself and yet not succeed in pleasing you, brother! _Col. G. (aside_). She _knows_ something.--I must go and see about his dinner. Good-bye, sister. _Mrs. C._ Good-bye, then. You will have your own way! _Col. G._ This once, Clara. _Exeunt severally_. END OF ACT II. ACT III. SCENE.--_A garret-room_. MATTIE. SUSAN. _Mat_. At the worst we've got to die some day, Sue, and I don't know but hunger may be as easy a way as another. _Sus_. I'd rather have a choice, though. And it's not hunger I would choose. _Mat_. There are worse ways. _Sus_. Never mind: we don't seem likely to be bothered wi' choosin'. _Mat_. There's that button-hole done. (_Lays down her work with a sigh, and leans back in her chair_.) _Sus_. I'll take it to old Nathan. It'll be a chop a-piece. It's wonderful what a chop can do to hearten you up. _Mat_. I don't think we ought to buy chops, dear. We must be content with bread, I think. _Sus_. Bread, indeed! _Mat_. Well, it's something to eat. _Sus_. Do you call it eatin' when you see a dog polishin' a bone? _Mat_. Bread's very good with a cup of tea. _Sus_. Tea, indeed! Fawn-colour, trimmed with sky-blue!--If you'd mentioned lobster-salad and sherry, now! _Mat_. I never tasted lobster-salad. _Sus_. I have, though; and I do call lobster-salad good. You don't care about your wittles: _I_ do. When I'm hungry, I'm not at all comfortable. _Mat_. Poor dear Sue! There is a crust in the cupboard. _Sus_. I _can't_ eat crusts. I want summat nice. I ain't dyin' of 'unger. It's only I'm peckish. _Very_ peckish, though. I could eat--let me see what I _could_ eat:--I could eat a lobster-salad, and two dozen oysters, and a lump of cake, and a wing and a leg of a chicken--if it was a spring chicken, with watercreases round it--and a Bath-bun, and a sandwich; and in fact I don't know what I couldn't eat, except just that crust in the cupboard. And I do believe I could drink a whole bottle of champagne. _Mat_. I don't know what one of those things tastes like--scarce one; and I don't believe you do either.