Mrs. Prim: Just try. I'll be waiting for you. Back to your padded cell you lunatic! Hurry and lock him up, he's becoming dangerous, I'm warning you. (Exit Mrs. Prim in a huff) Roger: (aside) I don't quite know how I am going to get out of this. Squire: (entering from the house) What's all this hullabaloo? Beating on an honest man's door and scandalizing the neighborhood? Richly: Roger, what's going on? Roger: The devils in your house are a little drunk. They frolic in the wine cellar. Richly: Some kind of swindle is afoot, I'm sure of it. Squire: They say the master of this house has just returned from a long sea voyage--would you be he by any chance? Richly: Yes, sir, I am he. Squire: I congratulate you, sir. That was a beautiful trip and a wonderful lesson for a young man. You must know, sir, that your son has been learning wonderful manners while you were gone. Really fine manners. The boy is very generous. Doesn't resemble you at all. You are a villain, sir. Richly: Sir, sir! Roger: These teasing devils are insolent. Richly: You are a rogue. Squire: We were very upset, very worried--full of concern over your return. In your absence your son was ready to kill himself from malaise. In truth, he disliked everything in life. He gave up all his vanities. Everything that could attach him to this earth: wealth, furniture, honors. This boy loves you so much it's unbelievable. Roger: He would have died of worry during your absence if it hadn't been for this honest gentleman. Richly: He! How is it you're in my house, sir, if you please? Squire: Don't you understand without my telling you? I've just drunk champagne in the best company. He's still feasting which is the best way possible for him to comfort himself in your absence. Richly: This swindler will ruin me. I'm going in. Roger: Stop! I will not allow you to enter. Richly: I can't go in to my own house? Squire: No. The company is not ready to receive you. Richly: What do you mean? Squire: It wouldn't be proper for a son who knows how to live and who has been learning manners from me to receive his father in a house which has nothing in it but the four walls. Richly: What--four walls? My beautiful paintings which cost me three thousand pounds--are they gone? Squire: We got eighteen hundred for them. Not a bad sale. Richly: Not a bad sale. Masterpieces like that. Squire: Bah! The subject was lugubrious. The fall of Troy with a villainous wooden horse that had neither mouth nor tail. We made a friend out of the buyer. Richly: Ah, gallowsbird. Squire: Weren't there a couple of other paintings that represented something? Richly: Oh, yes. They were originals by a master some think to be Leonardo-- they represented the Rape of the Sabines. Squire: Right. We got rid of them, too--because of delicacy of conscience. Richly: Delicacy of conscience!