"Mustn't Francis Charles go to work?"

In the library a chair overturned with a crash. A startled silence; then
the sound of swift feet. Thompson came through the open French window; a
short man, with a long shrewd face and a frosted poll. Feigned anxiety
sat on his brow; he planted his feet firmly and wide apart, and twinkled
down at his young guests.

"Pardon me, Mr. Sedgwick--I fear I did not catch your words correctly.
You were saying--?"

Francis Charles brought his chair to level and spoke with great feeling:

"As our host, to whom our bright young lives have been entrusted for a
time--standing to us, as you do, almost as a locoed parent--I put it to
you--"

"Shut up!" roared Ferdie. "Thompson, you see this--this object? You hear
it? Mustn't it go to work?"

"Ab-so-lutissimusly!"

"I protest against this outrage," said Francis Charles. "Thompson, you're
beastly sober. I appeal to your better self. I am a philosopher. Sitting
under your hospitable rooftree, I render you a greater service by my
calm and dispassionate insight than I could possibly do by any ill-judged
activity. Undisturbed and undistracted by greed, envy, ambition, or
desire, I see things in their true proportion. A dreamy spectator of the
world's turmoil, I do not enter into the hectic hurly-burly of life; I