in the sky. Did none of you hear it? It came from a
distance and then died away.

MANGAN. I tell you it was a train.

MRS HUSHABYE. And I tell you, Alf, there is no train at this hour. The
last is nine forty-five.

MANGAN. But a goods train.

MRS HUSHABYE. Not on our little line. They tack a truck on to the
passenger train. What can it have been, Hector?

HECTOR. Heaven's threatening growl of disgust at us useless futile
creatures. [Fiercely]. I tell you, one of two things must happen. Either
out of that darkness some new creation will come to supplant us as we
have supplanted the animals, or the heavens will fall in thunder and
destroy us.

LADY UTTERWORD [in a cool instructive manner, wallowing comfortably in
her hammock]. We have not supplanted the animals, Hector. Why do you ask
heaven to destroy this house, which could be made quite comfortable if
Hesione had any notion of how to live? Don't you know what is wrong with
it?

HECTOR. We are wrong with it. There is no sense in us. We are useless,
dangerous, and ought to be abolished.

LADY UTTERWORD. Nonsense! Hastings told me the very first day he came
here, nearly twenty-four years ago, what is wrong with the house.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. What! The numskull said there was something wrong with
my house!

LADY UTTERWORD. I said Hastings said it; and he is not in the least a
numskull.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. What's wrong with my house?

LADY UTTERWORD. Just what is wrong with a ship, papa. Wasn't it clever
of Hastings to see that?

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. The man's a fool. There's nothing wrong with a ship.

LADY UTTERWORD. Yes, there is.

MRS HUSHABYE. But what is it? Don't be aggravating, Addy.

LADY UTTERWORD. Guess.

HECTOR. Demons. Daughters of the witch of Zanzibar. Demons.

LADY UTTERWORD. Not a bit. I assure you, all this house needs to make it
a sensible, healthy, pleasant house, with good appetites and sound sleep
in it, is horses.

MRS HUSHABYE. Horses! What rubbish!

LADY UTTERWORD. Yes: horses. Why have we never been able to let this
house? Because there are no proper stables. Go anywhere in England where
there are natural, wholesome, contented, and really nice English people;
and what do you always find? That the stables are the real centre of
the household; and that if any visitor wants to play the piano the whole
room has to be upset before it can be opened, there are so many things
piled on it. I never lived until I learned to ride; and I