u're so impatient!

PHILIP.

[_To_ OTTOLINE.] Tsch, tsch! Go back to the fire and toast your toes
again.

BERTRAM.

I consider I was fully justified, I mean t'say----

[_Falteringly_ OTTOLINE _returns to the fireplace. She
stands there for a few seconds, clutching the
mantel-shelf, and then subsides into the chair before
the fire._ PHILIP _advances to the settee on the right._

PHILIP.

[_To_ DUNNING.] Sorry we have checked your flow of eloquence, Mr.
Dunning, even for a moment. [_Sitting._] I wouldn't miss a syllable of
it. [_Airily._] Do, please, continue.

SIR RANDLE.

[_Looking at his watch._] My dear Philip----!

BERTRAM.

[_To_ DUNNING, _wearily._] Oh, come to the man--what's his name,
Dunning?--Merryweather----!

DUNNING.

[_Turning several pages of his note-book with his wet thumb._]
Merrifield.

BERTRAM.

Merrifield. [_Passing behind_ DUNNING _and half-seating himself on the
further end of the table on the left._] Skip everything in between;
[_sarcastically_] my father and mother are dying for their dinner.

LADY FILSON.

Bertram!

DUNNING.

[_Finding the memorandum he is searching for, and quoting from it._]
Henry Merrifield--entry clerk to Titterton--left Titterton, after a
row, on the fifteenth of the present month----

BERTRAM.

A stroke of luck--Mr. Merrifield--if ever there was one! I mean
t'say----

DUNNING.

[_To everybody._] Having gleaned certain significant facts from the
said Henry Merrifield, ladies and gentlemen, [_referring to his notes_]
I paid two visits last week to the offices of Messrs. Hopwood & Co., of
6, Carmichael Lane, Walbrook, described in fresh paint on their door as
Shipping and General Agents; and the conclusion I arrived at was that
Messrs. Hopwood & Co. were a myth and their offices a blind, the latter
consisting of a small room on the ground floor, eight foot by twelve,
and their staff of the caretakers of the premises--Mr. and Mrs.
Sweasy--an old woman and her husband----

ROOPE.

[_To_ DUNNING.] If I may venture to interpose again,