(CARVE assumes an elaborately uninterested air.) The main point does
not seem to interest you, Mr. X.
CARVE. (Seeming to start.) I beg your pardon. No, not profoundly. Why
should it?
ALCAR. Yet you claim----
CARVE. Excuse me. I claim nothing except to be let alone. Certainly I do
not ask to be accepted as Ilam Carve. I was leading a placid and
agreeable existence in a place called Putney, an ideal existence with a
pearl among women, when my tranquillity was disturbed and my life
transformed into a perfect nightmare by a quarrel between a retail
trades-man (indicating EBAG) and a wholesale ink-dealer (indicating
TEXEL) about one of my pictures. It does not concern me. My role is and
will be passive. If I am forced into the witness-box I shall answer
questions to the worst of my ability, and I shall do no more. I am not
cross. I am not sulking; but I consider that I have a grievance. If I am
here, it is solely because my wife does what she likes with me.
TEXEL. Bravo! This is as good as the trial.
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