WILLIAM. Off and on I have friends staying.

LAURA. Are you living with Isabel?

WILLIAM. She comes in occasionally to see how I'm getting on.

LAURA. And how are you 'getting on'--without me?

WILLIAM. Oh, I manage--somehow.

LAURA. Are you living a proper life, William?

WILLIAM. Well, I'm _here_, my dear; what more do you want to know?

LAURA. There's a great deal I want to know. But I wish you'd come in and
shut the door, instead of standing out there in the passage.

JULIA. The door _is_ shut, Laura.

LAURA. Then I don't call it a door.

WILLIAM (_trying to make things pleasant_). When is a door not a
door? When it's a parent.

LAURA. William, I want to talk seriously. Do you know that when you died
you left a lot of debts I didn't know about?

WILLIAM. I didn't know about them either, my dear. But if you had, it
wouldn't have made any difference.