Astonishing book! Oh, we really had great fun! I wish _I'd_ written
it. Pity he's so irreclaimable.

_Hedda_. I suppose you mean he has more of the courage of life than
most people?

_George_. Good Lord! He had the courage to get more drunk than
most people. But, altogether, it was what you might almost call a
Bacchanalian orgy. We finished up by going to have early coffee with
some of these jolly chaps, and poor old LÖVBORG dropped his precious
manuscript in the mud, and I picked it up--and here it is! Fancy
if anything were to happen to it! He never could write it again.
_Wouldn't_ it be sad, eh? Don't tell anyone about it.

[_He leaves the packet of MSS. on a chair, and rushes out;
HEDDA hides the packet as BRACK enters._

_Brack_. _Another_ early call, you see! My party was such a singularly
animated _soirée_ that I haven't undressed all night. Oh, it was
the liveliest affair conceivable! And, like a true Norwegian host,
I tracked LÖVBORG home; and it is only my duty, as a friend of the
house, and cock of the walk, to take the first opportunity of telling
you that he finished up the evening by coming to mere loggerheads with
a red-haired opera-singer, and being taken off to the police-station!
You mustn't have him here any more. Remember our little triple
alliance!

_Hedda_ (_her smile fading away_). You are certainly a dangerous
person--but you must not get a hold over me!