g for me. [He
hurries out].

MRS HUSHABYE. Now MY father is a wonderful man if you like.

ELLIE. Hesione, listen to me. You don't understand. My father and Mr
Mangan were boys together. Mr Ma--

MRS HUSHABYE. I don't care what they were: we must sit down if you are
going to begin as far back as that. [She snatches at Ellie's waist, and
makes her sit down on the sofa beside her]. Now, pettikins, tell me all
about Mr Mangan. They call him Boss Mangan, don't they? He is a Napoleon
of industry and disgustingly rich, isn't he? Why isn't your father rich?

ELLIE. My poor father should never have been in business. His parents
were poets; and they gave him the noblest ideas; but they could not
afford to give him a profession.

MRS HUSHABYE. Fancy your grandparents, with their eyes in fine frenzy
rolling! And so your poor father had to go into business. Hasn't he
succeeded in it?

ELLIE. He always used to say he could succeed if he only had some
capital. He fought his way along, to keep a roof over our heads
and bring us up well; but it was always a struggle: always the same
difficulty of not having capital enough. I don't know how to describe it
to you.

MRS HUSHABYE. Poor Ellie! I know. Pulling the devil by the tail.

ELLIE [hurt]. Oh, no. Not like that. It was at least dignified.

MRS HUSHABYE. That made it all the harder, didn't it? I shouldn't
have pulled the devil by the tail with dignity. I should have pulled
hard--[between her teeth] hard. Well? Go on.

ELLIE. At last it seemed that all our troubles were at an end. Mr Mangan
did an extraordinarily noble thing out of pure friendship for my father
and respect for his character. He asked him how much capital he wanted,
and gave it to him. I don't mean that he lent it to him, or that he
invested it in his business. He just simply made him a present of it.
Wasn't that splendid of him?

MRS HUSHABYE. On condition that you married him?

ELLIE. Oh, no, no, no! This was when I was a child. He had never even
seen me: he never came to our house. It was absolutely disinterested.
Pure generosity.

MRS HUSHABYE. Oh! I beg the gentleman's pardon. Well, what became of the
money?

ELLIE. We all got new clothes and moved into another house. And I went
to another school for two years.

MRS HUSHABYE. Only two years?

ELLIE. That was all: for at the end of two years my father was utterly
ruined.

MRS HUSHABYE. How?

ELLIE. I don't know. I never could understand. But