(_Growing irritable._) I shall do something that will wound yours, Ben, in a minute, if you've got any. There are more ways of offering people help than by slapping them in the face with it. If the thing's done in the right spirit they won't refuse it. I'll see to that. MR. BEN DIXON. But, my dear, why should we interfere at all? Dear Mr. Cherry is only too anxious to help them. Why should we deprive that worthy man of the exquisite pleasure of assisting them? My dear, we have no right to --it's his first call--I mean his privilege---- MRS. BEN DIXON. Ben, you're either a fool or you're pretending to be one. What do you think induced that girl to accept him? MR. BEN DIXON. The usual thing, I suppose, my dear. Love that comes to---- MRS. BEN DIXON. Fiddlesticks! Girls of nineteen don't marry men of fifty-five for love. MR. BEN DIXON. Forty-three, my dear. He told me so himself. MRS. BEN DIXON. Forty-three, _and_ the rest. _I'm_ not a chicken, and he wore his own beard when he played Macbeth to my child's head. He's fifty-five if he's a day, and she's accepted him because they were both starving--small blame to her for it. What we've got to do is to lift them out of this poverty and give them a start, and then there'll be no need for the poor girl to sacrifice herself. MR. BEN DIXON. But think of Mr. Cherry. MRS. BEN DIXON. Oh, Cherry's an old fool, as good and kind a one as ever lived--that's better than some of them are--but an old fool all the same. Now come, Ben, I'm going to do my duty by poor dead Hetty's bairns, and you've got to help me. If they were cannibals or converted acrobats with no claim upon you whatever, you'd be eager enough to. MR. BEN DIXON. Precisely so, my dear. That is just it. You see, a public philanthropist has no right to indulge in private charities. He is meant for all alike. He embraces mankind. I embrace mankind. You find me two hundred poor medical students with their sisters, needing assistance, and I shall be delighted to receive subscriptions on their behalf. (_Aside_.) Oh, he must have taken it with him. MRS. BEN DIXON. I don't doubt it. In this case, you're going to _give_ something to _one_ poor medical student. The other 199 you can find for yourself. MR. BEN DIXON. Belinda, I cannot. It grieves me, but I cannot depart from my principles. Charity should be like the sun---- MRS. BEN DIXON. Yours _is_, Ben. We hear a good deal about it, but don't often see it. We won't argue the matter. My mind's made up. I want £4,000. MR. BEN DIXON. Then I'm very much afraid, my dear, you will have to do what a great many other people who want money have to do. MRS. BEN DIXON. Do you mean, Ben, that you won't let me have it? MR. BEN DIXON. I mean, my dear, I cannot. MRS. BEN DIXON. What have you done--blued the lot? MR. BEN DIXON.