t so too!

MATEY. Oh no, miss, I--he-- (The words he would keep back elude him).
You shouldn't have come, ladies; you didn't ought to have come.

(For the moment he is sorrier for them than for himself.)

LADY CAROLINE. (Shouldn't have come). Now, my man, what do you mean
by that?

MATEY. Nothing, my lady: I--I just mean, why did you come if you are
the kind he thinks?

MABEL. The kind he thinks?

ALICE. What kind does he think? Now we are getting at it.

MATEY (guardedly). I haven't a notion, ma'am.

LADY CAROLINE (whose w's must henceforth be supplied by the judicious
reader). Then it is not necessarily our virtue that makes Lob
interested in us?

MATEY (thoughtlessly). No, my lady; oh no, my lady. (This makes an
unfavourable impression.)

MRS. COADE. And yet, you know, he is rather lovable.

MATEY (carried away). He is, ma'am, He is the most lovable old
devil--I beg pardon, ma'am.

JOANNA. You scarcely need to, for in a way it is true. I have seen him
out there among his flowers, petting them, talking to them, coaxing
them till they simply _had_ to grow.

ALICE (making use perhaps of the wrong adjective). It is certainly a
divine garden.

(They all look at the unblinking enemy.)

MRS. COADE (not more deceived than the others). How lovely it is in
the moonlight. Roses, roses, all the way. (Dreamily.) It is like a
hat I once had when I was young.

ALICE. Lob is such an amazing gardener that I believe he could even
grow hats.

LADY CAROLINE (who will catch it for this). He is a wonderful
gardener; but is that quite nice at his age? What _is_ his age, man?

MATEY (shuffling). He won't tell, my lady. I think he is frightened
that the police would step in if they knew how old he is. They do say
in the village that they remember him seventy years ago, looking just
as he does to-day.

ALICE. Absurd.

MATEY. Yes, ma'am; but there are his razors.

LADY CAROLINE. Razors?

MATEY. You won't know about razors, my lady, not being married--as
yet--excuse me. But a married lady can tell a man's age by the number
of his razors. (A little scared.) If you saw his razors--there is a
little world of them, from patents of the present day back to
implements so horrible, you can picture him with them in his hand
scraping his way through the ages.

LADY CAROLINE. You amuse one to an extent. Was he ever married?

MATEY (too lightly). He has quite forgotten, my lady. (Reflecting.)
How long ago is it since Merry