Act III

[In the Rectory garden next morning, with the sun shining from a
cloudless sky. The garden wall has a five-barred wooden gate, wide
enough to admit a carriage, in the middle. Beside the gate hangs a bell
on a coiled spring, communicating with a pull outside. The carriage
drive comes down the middle of the garden and then swerves to its left,
where it ends in a little gravelled circus opposite the Rectory porch.
Beyond the gate is seen the dusty high road, parallel with the wall,
bounded on the farther side by a strip of turf and an unfenced pine
wood. On the lawn, between the house and the drive, is a clipped yew
tree, with a garden bench in its shade. On the opposite side the garden
is shut in by a box hedge; and there is a little sundial on the turf,
with an iron chair near it. A little path leads through the box hedge,
behind the sundial.]

[Frank, seated on the chair near the sundial, on which he has placed the
morning paper, is reading The Standard. His father comes from the house,
red-eyed and shivery, and meets Frank's eye with misgiving.]

FRANK [looking at his watch] Half-past eleven. Nice your for a rector to
come down to breakfast!

REV. S. Don't mock, Frank: don't mock. I am a little--er--[Shivering]--

FRANK. Off color?

REV. S. [repudiating the expression] No, sir: _unwell_ this morning.
Where's your mother?

FRANK. Don't be alarmed: she's not here. Gone to town by the 11.13
with Bessie. She left several messages for you. Do you feel equal to
receiving them now, or shall I wait til you've breakfasted?

REV. S. I h a v e breakfasted, sir. I am surprised at your mother
going to town when we have people staying with us. They'll think it very
strange.

FRANK. Possibly she has considered that. At all events, if Crofts is
going to stay here, and you are going to sit up every night with him
until four, recalling the incidents of your fiery youth, it is clearly
my mother's duty, as a prudent housekeeper, to go up to the stores and
order a barrel of whisky and a few hundred siphons.

REV. S. I did not observe that Sir George drank excessively.

FRANK. You were not in a condition to, gov'nor.

REV. S. Do you mean to say that _I_--?

FRANK [calmly] I never saw a beneficed clergyman less sober. The
anecdotes you told about your past career were so awful that I really
don't think Praed would have passed the night under your roof if it hadnt
been for the way my mother and he took to one another.

REV. S. Nonsense, sir. I am Sir George Crofts' host. I must talk to him
about something; and he has only one subject. Where is Mr Praed now?

FRANK. He is driving my mother and Bessie to the station.

REV. S. Is Crofts up yet?