en I was his age,
you wouldn't be getting proposals from a curate; no such luck. The
dustman would have been more in your line.

ERMYNTRUDE: But, father, he doesn't quarrel with the bishop. His
conscience doesn't let him believe in eternal punishment, and so he
speaks straight out. I do admire him so for it. He knows that if he was
silent he'd have had a good living long ago.

SLADDER: The wife of the head of my firm believed in spirit rapping. Did
I go and tell her what an old fool she was? No, I brought her messages
from another world as regular as a postman.

[_Steps are heard outside the window._

SLADDER: Run along, my dear, now.

ERMYNTRUDE: Very well, father.

SLADDER: The man that's going to look after my daughter must be able to
look after himself. Otherwise _I_ will, till a better man comes.

[_Exit_ ERMYNTRUDE. HIPPANTHIGH _and_ SPLURGE _appear at the window._
HIPPANTHIGH _enters and_ SPLURGE _moves away._

HIPPANTHIGH: You sent for me, Mr. Sladder?

SLADDER: Y-e-s--y-e-s. Take a chair. Now, Mr. Hippanthigh, I haven't
often been told off the way you told me off.

HIPPANTHIGH: I felt it to be my duty, Mr. Sladder.

SLADDER: Yes, quite so. Exactly. Well, it seems I'm a thoroughly bad old
man, only fit to rob the poor, an out-and-out old ruffian.

HIPPANTHIGH: I never said that.

SLADDER: No. But you made me feel it. I never felt so bad about myself
before, not as bad as that. But you, Mr. Hippanthigh, you were the
high-falutin' angel with a new brass halo, out on its bank holiday. Now,
how would clandestine love-making strike you, Mr. Hippanthigh? Would
that be all right to your way of thinking?

HIPPANTHIGH: Clandestine, Mr. Sladder? I hardly understand you.

SLADDER: I understand that you have been making love to my daughter.

HIPPANTHIGH: I admit it.

SLADDER: Well, I haven't heard you say anything about it to me before.
Did you tell her mother?

HIPPANTHIGH: Er--no.

SLADDER: Perhaps you told me. Very likely I've forgotten it.

HIPPANTHIGH: No.

SLADDER: Well, who _did_ you tell?

HIPPANTHIGH: We--we hadn't told anyone yet.

SLADDER: Well, I think clandestine's the word for it, Mr. Hippanthigh. I
haven't had time in my life to bother about the exact[1] meanings of
words or any nonsense of that sort, but I think clandestine's about the
word for it.

HIPPANTHIGH: It's a hard word, Mr. Sladder.

SLADDER: May be. And who began using hard words? You came here and made
me out a pi