JOANNA (summing up). But we are sure you know, and it you don't tell
us--quod.

MATEY (with growing uneasiness). I don't know what you mean, ladies.

ALICE. Oh yes, you do.

MRS. COADE You must admit that your master is a very strange person.

MATEY (wriggling). He is a little odd, ma'am. That is why every one
calls him Lob; not Mr. Lob.

JOANNA. He is so odd that it has got on my nerves that we have been
invited here for some sort of horrid experiment. (MATEY shivers.) You
look as if you thought so too!

MATEY. Oh no, miss, I--he--(The words he would keep back elude him).
You shouldn't have come, ladies; you didn't ought to have come.

(For the moment he is sorrier for them than for himself.)

LADY CAROLINE. (Shouldn't have come). Now, my man, what do you mean
by that?

MATEY. Nothing, my lady: I--I just mean, why did you come if you are
the kind he thinks?

MABEL. The kind he thinks?

ALICE. What kind does he think? Now we are getting at it.