WAITER. Right, sir. (To Crampton.) Irish for you, sir, I think, sir? (Crampton assents with a grunt. The waiter looks enquiringly at Valentine.) VALENTINE. I like the cucumber. WAITER. Right, sir. (Summing up.) Claret cup, syphon, one Scotch and one Irish? MRS. CLANDON. I think that's right. WAITER (perfectly happy). Right, ma'am. Directly, ma'am. Thank you. (He ambles off through the window, having sounded the whole gamut of human happiness, from the bottom to the top, in a little over two minutes.) McCOMAS. We can begin now, I suppose? BOHUN. We had better wait until Mrs. Clandon's husband arrives. CRAMPTON. What d'y' mean? I'm her husband. BOHUN (instantly pouncing on the inconsistency between this and his previous statement). You said just now your name was Crampton. CRAMPTON. So it is. MRS. CLANDON } (all four { I-- GLORIA } speaking { My-- McCOMAS } simul- { Mrs.-- VALENTINE } taneously). { You-- BOHUN (drowning them in two thunderous words). One moment. (Dead silence.) Pray allow me. Sit down everybody. (They obey humbly. Gloria takes the saddle-bag chair on the hearth. Valentine slips around to her side of the room and sits on the ottoman facing the window, so that he can look at her. Crampton sits on the ottoman with his back to Valentine's. Mrs. Clandon, who has all along kept at the opposite side of the room in order to avoid Crampton as much as possible, sits near the door, with McComas beside her on her left. Bohun places himself magisterially in the centre of the group, near the corner of the table on Mrs. Clandon's side. When they are settled, he fixes Crampton with his eye, and begins.) In this family, it appears, the husband's name is Crampton: the wife's Clandon. Thus we have on the very threshold of the case an element of confusion. VALENTINE (getting up and speaking across to him with one knee on the ottoman). But it's perfectly simple. BOHUN (annihilating him with a vocal thunderbolt). It is. Mrs. Clandon has adopted another name. That is the obvious explanation which you feared I could not find out for myself. You mistrust my intelligence, Mr. Valentine-- (Stopping him as he is about to protest.) No: I don't want you to answer that: I want you to think over it when you feel your next impulse to interrupt me. VALENTINE (dazed). This is simply breaking a butterfly on a wheel. What does it matter? (He sits down again.)