word for you
to use whenever I am about to relapse--some word that teems with
hidden meaning--like "Basingstoke"--it might recall me to my
saner self. For, after all, I am only Mad Margaret! Daft Meg!
Poor Meg! He! he! he!
DES. Poor child, she wanders! But soft--some one
comes--Margaret--pray recollect yourself--Basingstoke, I beg!
Margaret, if you don't Basingstoke at once, I shall be seriously
angry.
MAR. (recovering herself). Basingstoke it is!
DES. Then make it so.

(Enter Robin. He starts on seeing them.)

ROB. Despard! And his young wife! This visit is
unexpected.
MAR. Shall I fly at him? Shall I tear him limb from limb?
Shall I rend him asunder? Say but the word and--
DES. Basingstoke!
MAR. (suddenly demure). Basingstoke it is!
DES. (aside). Then make it so. (Aloud.) My brother--I
call you brother still, despite your horrible profligacy--we have
come to urge you to abandon the evil courses to which you have
committed yourself, and at any cost to become a pure and
blameless ratepayer.
ROB. But I've done no wrong yet.
MAR. (wildly). No wrong! He has done no wrong! Did you
hear that!
DES. Basingstoke!
MAR. (recovering herself). Basingstoke it is!
DES. My brother--I still call you brother, you observe--you
forget that you have been, in the eye of the law, a Bad Baronet
of Ruddigore for ten years--and you are therefore responsible--in
the eye of the law--for all the misdeeds committed by the unhappy
gentleman who occupied your place.
ROB. I see! Bless my heart, I never thought of that! Was
I very bad?
DES. Awful. Wasn't he? (To Margaret).
ROB. And I've been going on like this for how long?
DES. Ten years! Think of all the atrocities you have
committed--by attorney as it were--during that period. Remember
how you trifled with this poor child's affections--how you raised
her hopes on high (don't cry, my love--Basingstoke, you know),
only to trample them in the dust when they were at the very
zenith of their fullness. Oh fie, sir, fie--she trusted you!
ROB. Did she? What a scoundrel I must have been! There,
there--don't cry, my dear (to Margaret, who is sobbing on Robin's
breast), it's all right now. Birmingham, you know--Birmingham--
MAR. (sobbing). It's Ba--Ba--B