CATHERINE. But it was the bishop who told me so. He said a clergyman
who breaks both ways is sure to get on in England.

TREHERNE. I'm jolly glad.

(The master of the house comes in, accompanied by LORD BROCKLEHURST.
The EARL OF LOAM is a widower, a philanthropist, and a peer of
advanced ideas. As a widower he is at least able to interfere in the
domestic concerns of his house--to rummage in the drawers, so to
speak, for which he has felt an itching all his blameless life; his
philanthropy has opened quite a number of other drawers to him; and
his advanced ideas have blown out his figure. He takes in all the
weightiest monthly reviews, and prefers those that are uncut,
because he perhaps never looks better than when cutting them; but he
does not read them, and save for the cutting it would suit him as
well merely to take in the covers. He writes letters to the papers,
which are printed in a type to scale with himself, and he is very
jealous of those other correspondents who get his type. Let laws and
learning, art and commerce die, but leave the big type to an
intellectual aristocracy. He is really the reformed House of Lords
which will come some day.

Young LORD BROCKLEHURST is nothing save for his rank. You could pick
him up by the handful any day in Piccadilly or Holborn, buying
socks--or selling them.)

LORD LOAM (expansively). You are here, Ernest. Feeling fit for the
voyage, Treherne?

TREHERNE. Looking forward to it enormously.