_Stuart (calling out r.)._ This way, Fred. Here’s a quiet nook saved from the universal ruin and bareness of downstairs. [_Comes down._ _Enter_ FRED, _b. d., slowly_. _Stuart._ Isn’t this luck? _Fred (gloomily)._ There isn’t any such thing! Or if there is, I never get any. _Stuart._ Now, Fred, you can’t say that after this. You and I don’t want to stay and smoke with the men. Neither do we want to join the ladies. The other rooms are as bare and uncomfortable as waxed floors and camp-chairs can make them. I suggest trying upstairs, and when I discover and pilot you to this oasis in the desert, you at once begin to grumble. _Fred._ I’m sorry I’m bad company, Mr. Stuart; but if I’m so to you, just think what I must be to myself. _Stuart._ There is something in that. _Fred._ And you only see me occasionally, and I’m with myself day and night. _Stuart (laughing)._ Pity you can’t hire some one to kill your disagreeable companion. I wonder if a jury wouldn’t bring in a verdict of justifiable homicide, if you drowned or hung him. _Fred._ I’d like to! _Stuart._ Curious. Such a dinner, even when I know it’s to be followed by a ball, always puts me in a beatific state of mind. _Fred (wearily)._ I thought it very long and tedious. _Stuart._ And what is worse, you looked it. You looked as glum all through as if you were waiting for the last trump. _Fred (crossly)._ It wasn’t the last trump I was waiting for. I was— _Stuart (interrupting)._ No, I misworded my sentence. You were waiting for the last of Van Tromp. _Fred._ Oh, pshaw! [_Rises and crosses to r. angrily._ _Stuart (laughing)._ You don’t seem to enjoy my pun? _Fred._ Oh, if it pleases you, go ahead. [_Goes up and sits on desk._ _Stuart._ Fred, you make a mistake to go into society while you are in this mood. Take a friend’s advice and cut it till you are better tempered. _Fred (impatiently)._ I don’t go because I enjoy it. _Stuart (sarcastically)._ Ah! You go to make it pleasant for others. _Fred._ No, I go because _she_ goes. _Stuart (laughing)._ Will you tell me why a woman’s reason is always a “because,” and a man’s is always a “she”? _Fred._ _She_‘s an excuse for anything! _Stuart._ Even for Charlie Newbank? _Fred (rising angrily)._ Look here, Mr. Stuart, I’ll take a good deal from you; but there is a limit. _Stuart (soothingly)._ Excuse me, my boy. It is brutal in me, but I am trying to see if I can’t laugh you out of it. _Fred (sits chair l. as if discouraged)._ No use! As they say out West, it’s come to stay and grow up with the country. _Stuart._ Oh, I didn’t mean your love for Miss Wortley. She’s a sweet, unspoiled girl, in spite of her own and her papa’s money, and I hope you’ll win her. I was only trying to cheer you out of your dumps, and make you look at the golden side of things.