MRS HUSHABYE. Stop, stop. Come back, both of you. Come back. [They
return, reluctantly]. Money is running short.

HECTOR. Money! Where are my April dividends?

MRS HUSHABYE. Where is the snow that fell last year?

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Where is all the money you had for that patent
lifeboat I invented?

MRS HUSHABYE. Five hundred pounds; and I have made it last since Easter!

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Since Easter! Barely four months! Monstrous
extravagance! I could live for seven years on 500 pounds.

MRS HUSHABYE. Not keeping open house as we do here, daddiest.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Only 500 pounds for that lifeboat! I got twelve
thousand for the invention before that.

MRS HUSHABYE. Yes, dear; but that was for the ship with the magnetic
keel that sucked up submarines. Living at the rate we do, you cannot
afford life-saving inventions. Can't you think of something that will
murder half Europe at one bang?

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. No. I am ageing fast. My mind does not dwell on
slaughter as it did when I was a boy. Why doesn't your husband invent
something? He does nothing but tell lies to women.

HECTOR. Well, that is a form of invention, is it not? However, you are
right: I ought to support my wife.

MRS HUSHABYE. Indeed you shall do nothing of the sort: I should never
see you from breakfast to dinner. I want my husband.

HECTOR [bitterly]. I might as well be your lapdog.

MRS HUSHABYE. Do you want to be my breadwinner, like the other poor
husbands?

HECTOR. No, by thunder! What a damned creature a husband is anyhow!

MRS HUSHABYE [to the captain]. What about that harpoon cannon?

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. No use. It kills whales, not men.

MRS HUSHABYE. Why not? You fire the harpoon out of a cannon. It sticks
in the enemy's general; you wind him in; and there you are.

HECTOR. You are your father's daughter, Hesione.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. There is something in it. Not to wind in generals:
they are not dangerous. But one could fire a grapnel and wind in a
machine gun or even a tank. I will think it out.

MRS HUSHABYE [squeezing the captain's arm affectionately]. Saved! You
are a darling, daddiest. Now we must go back to these dreadful people
and entertain them.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. They have had no dinner. Don't forget that.

HECTOR. Neither have I. And it is dark: it must be all hours.

MRS HUSHABYE. Oh, Guinness will produce some sort of dinner for them.
The servants always take jolly good care that there is food in th