The Title | Page 5

Please do excuse me. (_She sits_).
TRANTO. On the contrary, it's I who should ask to be excused--proposing myself like this at the last moment.
MRS. CULVER. It was very nice of you to think of us. Come and sit down here. (Indicating a place by her side on the sofa.) Now in my poor addled brain I had an idea you were engaged for to-night at your aunt's, Lady Blackfriars'.
TRANTO (_sitting_). Mrs. Culver, you forget nothing. I was engaged for Auntie Joe's, but she's ill and she's put me off.
MRS. CULVER. Dear me! How very sudden!
TRANTO. Sudden?
MRS. CULVER. I met Lady Blackfriars at tea late this afternoon and it struck me how well she was looking.
TRANTO. Yes, she always looks particularly well just before she's going to be ill. She's very brave, very brave.
MRS. CULVER. D'you mean in having twins? It was more than brave of her; it was beautiful--both boys, too.
HILDEGARDE (_innocently_). Budgeting for a long war.
MRS. CULVER (_affectionately_). My dear girl! Come here, darling, you haven't changed. Excuse me, Mr. Tranto.
HILDEGARDE (_approaching_). I've been so busy. And I thought nobody was coming.
MRS. CULVER. Is your father nobody? (stroking and patting Hildegarde's _dress into order_). What have you been so busy on?
HILDEGARDE. Article for The Echo. (Tranto, _who has been holding the MS., indicates it_.)
MRS. CULVER. I do wish you would let me see those cookery articles of yours before they're printed.
TRANTO (_putting MS. in his pocket_). I'm afraid that's quite against the rules. You see, in Fleet Street--
MRS. CULVER (_very pleasantly_). As you please. I don't pretend to be intellectual. But I confess I'm just a wee bit disappointed in Hildegarde's cookery articles. I'm a great believer in good cookery. I put it next to the Christian religion--and far in front of mere cleanliness. I've just been trying to read Professor Metchnikoff's wonderful book on 'The Nature of Man.' It only confirms me in my lifelong belief that until the nature of man is completely altered good cooking is the chief thing that women ought to understand. Now I taught Hildegarde some cookery myself. She was not what I should call a brilliant pupil, but she did grasp the great eternal principles. And yet I find her writing (_with charm and benevolence_) stuff like her last article--'The Everlasting Boiled Potato,' I think she called it. Hildegarde, it was really very naughty of you to say what you said in that article. (Drawing down Hildegarde's head and kissing her.)
TRANTO. Now why, Mrs. Culver? I thought it was so clever.
MRS. CULVER. It may be clever to advocate fried potatoes and chip potatoes and sauté potatoes as a change from the everlasting boiled. I daresay it's what you call journalism. But how can you fry potatoes without fat?
TRANTO. Ah! How?
MRS. CULVER. And where are you to obtain fat? I can't obtain fat. I stand in queues for hours because my servants won't--it's the latest form of democracy--but I can't obtain fat. I think the nearest fat is at Stratford-on-Avon.
TRANTO. Stand in queues! Mrs. Culver, you make me feel very guilty, plunging in at a moment's notice and demanding a whole dinner in a fatless world. I shall eat nothing but dry bread.
MRS. CULVER. We never serve bread at lunch or dinner unless it's specially asked for. But if soup, macaroni, eggs, and jelly will keep you alive till breakfast--
HILDEGARDE. But there's beefsteak, mamma--I've told Mr. Tranto.
MRS. CULVER. Only a little, and that's for your father. Beefsteak's the one thing that keeps off his neuralgia, Mr. Tranto. (With apologetic persuasiveness.) I'm sure you'll understand.
TRANTO. Dear lady, I've never had neuralgia in my life. Macaroni, eggs, and jelly are my dream. I've always wanted to feel like an invalid.
MRS. CULVER. And how did you get on with your Medical Board this morning?
TRANTO. How marvellous of you to remember that I had a Medical Board this morning! I believe I've found out your secret, Mrs. Culver--you're undergoing a course of Pelman with those sixty generals and forty admirals. Well, the Medical Board have given me a new complaint. You'll be sorry to hear that I'm deformed.
MRS. CULVER. Not deformed!
TRANTO. Yes. It appears I'm flat-footed. (Extending his leg.) Have I ever told you that I had a dashing military career extending over four months, three of which I spent in hospital for a disease I hadn't got? Then I was discharged as unfit. After a year they raked me in again. Since then I've been boarded five times, and on the unimpeachable authority of various R.A.M.C. Colonels I've been afflicted with valvular disease of the heart, incipient tuberculosis, rickets, varicose veins, diabetes--practically everything, except spotted fever and leprosy. And now flat feet are added to all the rest. Even the Russian collapse and the transfer of the entire German army to the Western Front hasn't raised