must have business, and that it can't
be run like a tea-party. What more do you want?

HIPPANTHIGH: I want you to spare them, Mr. Sladder.

SLADDER: Spare them? Spare them? Why, what's the matter with them? I'm
not killing them.

HIPPANTHIGH: No, Mr. Sladder, you're not killing them. The mortality
among children's a bit on the high side, but I wouldn't say that was
entirely due to your bread. There's a good many minor ailments among the
grown-up people, it seems to attack their digestion mostly, one can't
trace each case to its source; but their health and their teeth aren't
what they were when they had the pure wheaten bread.

SLADDER: But there _is_ wheat in my bread, prepared by a special
process.

HIPPANTHIGH: Ah! It's that special process that does it, I expect.

SLADDER: Well, they needn't buy it if it isn't good.

HIPPANTHIGH: Ah, they can't help themselves, poor fools; they've been
taught to do it from their childhood up. Virilo, Bredo and Weeto, that
are all so much better than bread, it's a choice between these three.
Bread is never advertised, or God's good wheat.

SLADDER: Mr. Hippanthigh, if I'm too much of a fool to sell my goods I
suffer for it; if they're such fools as to buy my Virilo, they suffer
for it--that is to say, you say they do--that is a natural law that may
be new to you. But why should I suffer more than them? Besides, if I
take my Virilo off the market just to oblige you, Mr. Hippanthigh, a
little matter of L30,000 a year----

HIPPANTHIGH: I--er----

SLADDER: O, don't mention it. Any little trifle to oblige! But if I did,
up would go the sales of Bredo and Weeto (which have nothing to do with
my firm), and your friends wouldn't be any better for that let me tell
you, for I happen to know how _they're_ made.

HIPPANTHIGH: I am not speaking of the wickedness of others. I come to
appeal to you, Mr. Sladder, that for nothing that _you_ do, our English
race shall lose anything of its ancient strength, in its young men in
their prime, or that they should grow infirm a day sooner than God
intended, when He planned his course for man.

ERMYNTRUDE (_off_): Father! Father!

[SLADDER _draws himself up, and stands erect to meet the decisive news
that he has expected._

[_Enter_ ERMYNTRUDE.

ERMYNTRUDE: Father! The mice have eaten the cheese.

SLADDER: Ah! The public will---- O! (_He has suddenly seen_
HIPPANTHIGH).

HIPPANTHIGH (_solemnly_): What new wickedness is this, Mr. Sladd