Your father used to have a
saying: "If you're going to cross the Rubicon, cross it. Don't wade out
to the middle and _stand_ there; you only get hell from both banks."
[Enter LADY CREECH from the hotel.]
LADY CREECH [testily]. Mr. Granger-Simpson, have you seen my nephew?
HORACE. No; I've rather avoided that, if you don't mind my saying so.
LADY CREECH. Mr. Granger-Simpson!
HORACE. I'm sorry, Lady Creech, but I've had a most awful shaking-up,
and I'm almost thinking of going back home with Mr. Pike. I rather think
he's about right in his ideas. You know we abused him, not only for
himself, but for his vulgar friend; yet his vulgar friend turned out to
be a grand-duke--and look at what our friends turned out to be.
[Goes rapidly into the hotel.]
[ALMERIC'S voice is heard from the grove. "Come along! There's a good
fellow!"]
LADY CREECH. Isn't that Almeric?
PIKE. Here he comes, shamed and bending under the blow!
[ALMERIC enters from the grove, leading a bull terrier pup.]
ALMERIC. Mariano, Mariano--I say, Mariano! I say, Aunty, ain't he
rippin'? Lucky I got there just as I did--a bounder wanted to buy him
five minutes later.
[MARIANO enters from hotel.]
Mariano, do you think you could be trusted to wash him?
MARIANO. Wash him!
ALMERIC. Tepid water, you know; and mind he doesn't take cold; and just
a little milk afterward--nothing else but milk, you understand.
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