come in.
[On their 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:2 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 clergyman3 of the Established Church, is over 50. Externally he is pretentious, booming, noisy, important. Really he is that obsolescent social 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. SAMUEL
Well, sir. Who are your friends here, if I may ask?
FRANK
Oh, it's all right, gov'nor! Come in.
REV. SAMUEL
No sir; not until I know whose garden I am entering.
FRANK
It's all right. It's Miss Warren's.
REV. SAMUEL
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. SAMUEL
Dont be disrespectful, sir.
FRANK
Oh, it dont matter: nobody hears us. Come in. [He opens the gate, unceremoniously pidling 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. SAMUEL
[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 somebody with both. Well, look here. Miss Warren
has brains: you cant deny that.
REV. SAMUEL
Brains are not everything.
FRANK
NO, of course not: theres the money?
REV. SAMUEL
[Interrupting him austerely.] I was not thinking of money, sir. I was speaking of higher things. Social position, for instance.
FRANK
I dont care a rap about that.
REV. SAMUEL But I do, sir.
FRANK
Well, nobody wants you to marry her. Anyhow, she has what amounts
to a high Cambridge degree; and she seems to have as much money as she
wants.
2. I.e., governor, a common nickname given to a from which he receives income. Such positions father or other male authority figure. were generally controlled by major landowners. 3. I.e., the recipient of an endowed
