JANET. (Starting up.) What's that? (She goes to inspect picture.) CARVE. I suppose it would be abusing your hospitality to inquire how much you paid our excellent dealer for it? ALCAR. Not in the least. But the fact is we haven't yet settled the price. The exact price is to depend on the result of our gathering. JANET. Well, if anybody had told me I should find my own portrait--cooking-sleeves and all---- (Inarticulate--she returns to her chair.) ALCAR. And now that we have got so far, Mr. X, I should like to centralize the attention of this quite friendly gathering on yourself. CARVE. (Approaching airily.) Really! (He sits.) ALCAR. There are several questions we might discuss. For example, we might argue the artistic value of the pictures admittedly the work of Mr. X. That would probably occupy us for about ten years. Or we might ask ourselves how it happened that that exceedingly astute dealer, Mr. Ebag, came to sell as a genuine Ilam Carve, without offering any explanation, a picture which, on the face of it, was painted some time after that great painter had received a national funeral in Westminster Abbey. EBAG. Sheer carelessness, my lord. ALCAR. Or we might ask ourselves why a valet should try to pass himself off as a world-renowned artist. Or, on the other hand, why a world-renowned artist should pass himself off as a valet. CARVE. Sheer carelessness, my lord. ALCAR. But these details of psychology are beside the main point. And the main point is (to CARVE)--Are you Ilam Carve or are you Albert Shawn? (To the others.) Surely with a little goodwill and unembarrassed by the assistance of experts, lawyers, and wigs generally, we can settle that! And once it is settled the need for a trial ceases. (CARVE assumes an elaborately uninterested air.) The main point does not seem to interest you, Mr. X. CARVE. (Seeming to start.) I beg your pardon. No, not profoundly. Why should it? ALCAR. Yet you claim---- CARVE. Excuse me. I claim nothing except to be let alone. Certainly I do not ask to be accepted as Ilam Carve. I was leading a placid and agreeable existence in a place called Putney, an ideal existence with a pearl among women, when my tranquillity was disturbed and my life transformed into a perfect nightmare by a quarrel between a retail trades-man (indicating EBAG) and a wholesale ink-dealer (indicating TEXEL) about one of my pictures. It does not concern me. My role is and will be passive. If I am forced into the witness-box I shall answer questions to the worst of my ability, and I shall do no more. I am not cross. I am not sulking; but I consider that I have a grievance. If I am here, it is solely because my wife does what she likes with me. TEXEL. Bravo! This is as good as the trial. ALCAR. (Good-humouredly.) Will you answer questions here? CARVE. (Good-humouredly.) It depends. ALCAR. Do you assert that you are Ilam Carve? CARVE. I assert nothing. ALCAR. Are you Ilam Carve?