ir way to the porch they are interrupted by a call from the gate.
Turning, they see an elderly clergyman looking over it.]

THE CLERGYMAN [calling] Frank!

FRANK. Hallo! [To Praed] The Roman father. [To the clergyman] Yes,
gov'nor: all right: presently. [To Praed] Look here, Praed: youd better
go in to tea. I'll join you directly.

PRAED. Very good. [He goes into the cottage].

[The clergyman remains outside the gate, with his hands on the top of
it. The Rev. Samuel Gardner, a beneficed clergyman of the Established
Church, is over 50. Externally he is pretentious, booming, noisy,
important. Really he is that obsolescent phenomenon the fool of the
family dumped on the Church by his father the patron, clamorously
asserting himself as father and clergyman without being able to command
respect in either capacity.]

REV. S. Well, sir. Who are your friends here, if I may ask?

FRANK. Oh, it's all right, gov'nor! Come in.

REV. S. No, sir; not until I know whose garden I am entering.

FRANK. It's all right. It's Miss Warren's.

REV. S. I have not seen her at church since she came.

FRANK. Of course not: she's a third wrangler. Ever so intellectual. Took
a higher degree than you did; so why should she go to hear you preach?

REV. S. Don't be disrespectful, sir.

FRANK. Oh, it don't matter: nobody hears us. Come in. [He opens the gate,
unceremoniously pulling his father with it into the garden]. I want to
introduce you to her. Do you remember the advice you gave me last July,
gov'nor?

REV. S. [severely] Yes. I advised you to conquer your idleness and
flippancy, and to work your way into an honorable profession and live on
it and not upon me.

FRANK. No: thats what you thought of afterwards. What you actually said
was that since I had neither brains nor money, I'd better turn my good
looks to account by marrying someone with both. Well, look here. Miss
Warren has brains: you can't deny that.

REV. S. Brains are not everything.

FRANK. No, of course not: theres the money--

REV. S. [interrupting him austerely] I was not thinking of money, sir. I
was speaking of higher things. Social position, for instance.

FRANK. I don't care a rap about that.

REV. S. But I do, sir.

FRANK. Well, nobody wants y o u to marry her. Anyhow, she has what
amounts to a high Cambridge degree; and she seems to have as much money
as she wants.

REV. S. [sinking into a feeble vein of humor] I greatly doubt whether
she has as muc