I mean is--will you have a bottle of champagne?

HIPPANTHIGH: Mr. Sladder, I've come to speak with you because I believe
it to be my duty to do so. I have hesitated to come, but when for
particular reasons it became most painful to me to do so, then I knew
that it was my clear duty, and I have come.

SLADDER: O, yes, what they call a duty call. O, yes, quite so. Yes,
exactly.

HIPPANTHIGH: Mr. Sladder, many of my parishioners are acquainted with
the thing that you sell as bread. (_From the moment of_ HIPPANTHIGH'S
_entry till now_ SLADDER, _over-cheerful and anxious, has been
struggling to do and say the right thing through all the complications
of a visit; but now that the note of Business has been sounded he
suddenly knows where he is and becomes alert and stern, and all there._)

SLADDER: What? Virilo?

HIPPANTHIGH: Yes. They pay more for it than they pay for bread, because
they've been taught somehow, poor fools, that "they must have the best."
They've been made to believe that it makes them, what they call virile,
poor fools, and they're growing ill on it. Not so ill that I can prove
anything, and the doctor daren't help me.

SLADDER: Are you aware, Mr. Hippanthigh, that if you said in public what
you're saying to me, you would go to prison for it, unless you can run
to the very heavy fine--damages would be enormous.

HIPPANTHIGH: I know that, Mr. Sladder, and so I have come to you as the
last hope for my people.

SLADDER: Are you aware, Mr. Hippanthigh, that you are making an attack
upon business? I don't say that business is as pure as a surplice. But I
do say that in business it is--as you may not understand--get on or go
under; and without my business, or the business of the next man, who is
doing his best to beat me, what would happen to trade? I don't know
what's going to happen to England if you get rid of her trade, Mr.
Hippanthigh.... Well?... When we're broke because we've been doing
business with surplices on, what are the other countries going to do,
Mr. Hippanthigh? Can you answer me that?

HIPPANTHIGH: No, Mr. Sladder.

SLADDER: Ah! So I've got the best of you?

HIPPANTHIGH: Yes, Mr. Sladder. I'm not so clever as you.

SLADDER: Glad you admit the point. As for cleverness it isn't that I've
so much of that, but I use what I've got. Well, have you anything more
to say?

HIPPANTHIGH: Only to appeal to you, Mr. Sladder, on behalf of these poor
people.

SLADDER: Why. But you admitted one