plication that he is
such a person is so intolerable that they receive it with a prolonged
burst of booing.)

BRASSBOUND (returning in his own clothes, getting into his jacket as
he comes). Stand by, all. (They start asunder guiltily, and wait for
orders.) Redbrook: you pack that clobber in the lady's portmanteau, and
put it aboard the yacht for her. Johnson: you take all hands aboard the
Thanksgiving; look through the stores: weigh anchor; and make all ready
for sea. Then send Jack to wait for me at the slip with a boat; and give
me a gunfire for a signal. Lose no time.

JOHNSON. Ay, ay, air. All aboard, mates.

ALL. Ay, ay. (They rush out tumultuously.)

When they are gone, Brassbound sits down at the end of the table, with
his elbows on it and his head on his fists, gloomily thinking. Then he
takes from the breast pocket of his jacket a leather case, from which he
extracts a scrappy packet of dirty letters and newspaper cuttings. These
he throws on the table. Next comes a photograph in a cheap frame. He
throws it down untenderly beside the papers; then folds his arms, and
is looking at it with grim distaste when Lady Cicely enters. His back
is towards her; and he does not hear her. Perceiving this, she shuts the
door loudly enough to attract his attention. He starts up.

LADY CICELY (coming to the opposite end of the table). So you've taken
off all my beautiful clothes!

BRASSBOUND. Your brother's, you mean. A man should wear his own clothes;
and a man should tell his own lies. I'm sorry you had to tell mine for
me to-day.

LADY CICELY. Oh, women spend half their lives telling little lies for
men, and sometimes big ones. We're used to it. But mind! I don't admit
that I told any to-day.

BRASSBOUND. How did you square my uncle?

LADY CICELY. I don't understand the expression.

BRASSBOUND. I mean--

LADY CICELY. I'm afraid we haven't time to go into what you mean before
lunch. I want to speak to you about your future. May I?

BRASSBOUND (darkening a little, but politely). Sit down. (She sits down.
So does he.)

LADY CICELY. What are your plans?

BRASSBOUND. I have no plans. You will hear a gun fired in the harbor
presently. That will mean that the Thanksgiving's anchor's weighed and
that she is waiting for her captain to put out to sea. And her captain
doesn't know now whether to turn her head north or south.

LADY CICELY. Why not north for England?

BRASSBOUND. Why not south for the Pole?

LADY