There’ll be twice as many at the dinner-hour. SWALECLIFFE. You don’t know what the Tories are doing, Colonel? BOYCE. I should think I did know. They’re going to set up the article as soon as it comes in. ETCHINGHAM. The whole article? BOYCE. The whole confounded thing. JAMES FORD. And placard the streets with it. They’ve made arrangements to print off a thousand, and they’ve got their bill stickers all ready and waiting. ETCHINGHAM. It’s infamous. JAMES FORD. Nonsense! It’s business. We’d have done the same if we’d had the luck to get such a stick as this to beat Morrison with the very morning of the election. SWALECLIFFE. The comfort is, they don’t know Morrison and they do know Winter. JAMES FORD. That’s the danger, too. They may know him too well. ETCHINGHAM. I don’t know what the devil you mean by that. You seem to forget that you’re speaking of my son-in-law. JAMES FORD. Oh, we’re not here to pay one another compliments. BENNETT. If you’ll wait a minute or two he’ll be here himself and you can say to him anything you want to. BOYCE. What I can’t make out is why he chose this particular day to bring out his company. BENNETT. He didn’t think the election would take place just yet. JAMES FORD. Every one’s been talking of a general election for the last two months. BENNETT. You know it was sprung upon us at the end. SWALECLIFFE. Couldn’t he have kept the issue back? ETCHINGHAM. He’d got everything fixed up by then. JAMES FORD. [_Speaking through._] Of course he could. It was only his obstinacy. I told him it was a bad time to give an American issue to the public. ETCHINGHAM. Well, you weren’t obliged to apply for shares, were you? JAMES FORD. Tell me something I don’t know next, will you? ETCHINGHAM. I can tell you there’s no harm in keeping a civil tongue in your head. JAMES FORD. Thank you, I don’t want lessons in manners from you. BENNETT. You won’t do yourselves much good by losing your tempers. SWALECLIFFE. Why doesn’t Mr. Winter come? BOYCE. I dare say he’s sent his car to take some one to the poll and he’s had to walk. ETCHINGHAM. It seems to me that you’ve bungled everything you could. BOYCE. I don’t know why the devil you should blame me. [_A waiter comes in with newspapers on a tray._ BENNETT. Here they are at last. [_They crowd round the waiter and take the papers from him. The waiter goes out._ ETCHINGHAM. Thank God, now we shall know the worst. BOYCE. _The Financial News._ JAMES FORD. No, that’s got nothing. BENNETT. Here it is. _The Financial Standard._ JAMES FORD. Give it me. [_He takes the paper from_ BENNETT _and opens it_. ETCHINGHAM _watches him anxiously_. SWALECLIFFE. I wish to goodness I’d never thought of stocks and shares. I knew it was wrong. Oh, what a punishment! JAMES FORD. [_Impatiently._] We can’t all read the paper at once. BENNETT. Spread it out on the table. That’s the best way.