TEXEL. For myself I'm rather looking forward to next week. I've spared no expense to get up a first-class show. Half the papers in New York and Chicago are sending over special correspondents. I've even secured your champion humorous judge; and altogether I reckon this trial will be about the greatest judicial proposition the British public's seen in years. Still, I'm always ready to oblige--and I'll shake hands right now, on terms--my terms. ALCAR. We are making progress. TEXEL. But what I don't understand is--where you come in, Lord Leonard. ALCAR. Where I come in? TEXEL. Well, I don't want to be personal, but is this Hague Conference merely your hobby, or are you standing in with somebody? ALCAR. I quite appreciate your delicacy. Let me assure you that, though it gives me the greatest pleasure to see you all, I have not selected you as the victims of a hobby. Nor have I anything whatever to gain by stopping the trial. The reverse. At the trial I should probably have a seat on the bench next to a delightful actress, and I should enjoy the case very much indeed. I have no doubt that even now the learned judge is strenuously preparing his inimitable flashes of humour, and that, like the rest of the world, I should allow myself to be convulsed by them. I like to think of four K.C.'s toiling hard for a miserable hundred guineas a day each. I like to think of the solicitors, good, honest fellows, striving their best to keep the costs as low as possible. I even like to think of the jury with their powerful intellects who, when we are dead and gone, Mr. Texel, will tell their grandchildren proudly how they decided the famous case of Texel v. Ebag. Above all, I like to think of the witnesses revelling in their cross-examination. Nobody will be more sorry than I to miss this grand spectacle of the greatest possible number of the greatest possible brains employed for the greatest possible length of time in settling a question that an average grocer's assistant could settle in five minutes. I am human. But, I have been approached--I have been flattered by the suggestion--that I might persuade you two gentlemen to abandon the trial, and I may whisper to you that the abandonment of the trial would afford satisfaction in--er--influential quarters. TEXEL. Then are we up against the British Government? Well, go ahead. ALCAR. (Protesting with a very courteous air of extreme astonishment.) My dear Mr. Texel, how can I have been so clumsy as to convey such an idea? The Government? Not in the least--not in the least. On behalf of nobody whatever. (Confidentially.) I am merely in a position to inform you positively that an amicable settlement of the case would be viewed with satisfaction in influential quarters. JANET. Well, I can tell you it would be viewed with satisfaction in a certain street in Putney. But influential quarters--what's it got to do with them?