GE. Ah, Mr. Pim, we meet at last. Sorry to have kept you waiting
before.

PIM. The apology should come from me, Mr. Marden for having--er--

GEORGE. Not at all. Very glad to meet you now. Any friend of Brymer's.
You want a letter to this man Fanshawe?

OLIVIA. Shall I be in your way at all?

PIM. Oh, no, no, please don't.

GEORGE. It's only just a question of a letter. (Going to his desk)
Fanshawe will put you in the way of seeing all that you want to see.
He's a very old friend of mine. (Taking a sheet of notepaper) You'll
stay to lunch, of course?

PIM. I'm afraid I am lunching with the Trevors--

GEORGE. Oh, well, they'll look after you all right. Good chap, Trevor.

PIM (to OLIVIA). You see, Mrs. Marden, I have only recently arrived
from Australia after travelling about the world for some years, and
I'm rather out of touch with my--er--fellow-workers in London.

OLIVIA. Oh yes. You've been in Australia, Mr. Pim?

GEORGE (disliking Australia). I shan't be a moment, Mr. Pim. (He
frowns at OLIVIA.)

PIM. Oh, that's all right, thank you. (to OLIVIA) Oh yes, I have been
in Australia more than once in the last few years.

OLIVIA. Really? I used to live at Sydney many years ago. Do you know
Sydney at all?

GEORGE (detesting Sydney). H'r'm! Perhaps I'd better mention that you
are a friend of the Trevors?

PIM. Thank you, thank you. (to OLIVIA) Indeed yes, I spent several
months in Sydney.

OLIVIA. How curious. I wonder if we have any friends in common there.

GEORGE (hastily). Extremely unlikely, I should think. Sydney is a very
big place.

PIM. True, but the world is a very small place, Mr. Marden. I had a
remarkable instance of that, coming over on the boat this last time.

GEORGE. Ah! (Feeling that the conversation is now safe, he resumes his
letter.)

PIM. Yes. There was a man I used to employ in Sydney some years ago, a
bad fellow, I'm afraid, Mrs. Marden, who had been in prison for some
kind of fraudulent company-promoting and had taken to drink and--and
so on.

OLIVIA. Yes, yes, I understand.

PIM. Drinking himself to death I should have said. I gave him at the
most another year to live. Yet to my amazement the first person I saw
as I stepped on board the boat that brought me to England last week
was this fellow. There was no mistaking him. I spoke to him, in fact;
we recognised each other.

OLIVIA. Really?

PIM. He was travelling steerage; we didn't meet again on board, and as
it happ