BELLA.--And I'M glad you're not my father, because you are a wicked man! MILLIKEN.--Arabella! BELLA.--Grandmamma says so. He is a worldly man, and the world is wicked. And he goes to the play: and he smokes, and he says-- TOUCHIT.--Bella, what do I say? BELLA.--Oh, something dreadful! You know you do! I heard you say it to the cabman. TOUCHIT.--So I did, so I did! He asked me fifteen shillings from Piccadilly, and I told him to go to--to somebody whose name begins with a D. CHILDREN.--Here's another carriage passing. BELLA.--The Lady Rumble's carriage. GEORGE.--No, it ain't: it's Captain Boxer's carriage [they run into the garden]. TOUCHIT.--And this is the pass to which you have brought yourself, Horace Milliken! Why, in your wife's time, it was better than this, my poor fellow! MILLIKEN.--Don't speak of her in THAT way, George Touchit! TOUCHIT.--What have I said? I am only regretting her loss for our sake. She tyrannized over you; turned your friends out of doors; took your name out of your clubs; dragged you about from party to party, though you can no more dance than a bear, and from opera to opera, though you don't know "God Save the Queen" from "Rule Britannia." You don't, sir; you know you don't. But Arabella was better than her mother, who has taken possession of you since your widowhood. MILLIKEN.--My dear fellow! no, she hasn't. There's MY mother. TOUCHIT.--Yes, to be sure, there's Mrs. Bonnington, and they quarrel over you like the two ladies over the baby before King Solomon. MILLIKEN.--Play the satirist, my good friend! laugh at my weakness! TOUCHIT.--I know you to be as plucky a fellow as ever stepped, Milliken, when a man's in the case. I know you and I stood up to each other for an hour and a half at Westminster. MILLIKEN.--Thank you! We were both dragons of war! tremendous champions! Perhaps I am a little soft as regards women. I know my weakness well enough; but in my case what is my remedy? Put yourself in my position. Be a widower with two young children. What is more natural than that the mother of my poor wife should come and superintend my family? My own mother can't. She has a half-dozen of little half brothers and sisters, and a husband of her own to attend to. I dare say Mr. Bonnington and my mother will come to dinner to-day. TOUCHIT.--Of course they will, my poor old Milliken, you don't dare to dine without them. MILLIKEN.--Don't go on in that manner, George Touchit! Why should not my step-father and my mother dine with me? I can afford it. I am a domestic man and like to see my relations about me. I am in the city all day. TOUCHIT.--Luckily for you.