MR TODD 
187 
 
a gentleman named Shaw that marriage is only a joke—
no, not Shaw !  Vaughan, or Gorell Barnes, or some name 
like that !    
EUPHEMIA.  But you will, won’t you ?    
CARR.  No, I won’t, will I ?    
[Sings.]  “ I have a wife and bairnies three,  
And I’m no sure how ye’d agree, lassie ! ”  
EUPHEMIA.  What ?    
[She releases herself. 
CARR.  Well, the wife’s dead, as a matter of fact.  Her 
name was Hope-of-ever-doing-something-in-the-Wide-
Wide.  But the bairns are alive :  young Chemistry, 
already apt at repartee—I should say retort ;  little Biology, 
who’s rather a worm between you and me and the gate-
post ;  and poor puny, puling, sickly little Metaphysics, 
with only one tooth in his upper jaw !    
Oh, don’t cry !  I love you as I always did and always 
shall.  I’ll see you through it somehow !    
But don’t talk foolishness about marriage !  We are 
happy because when I come to see you I come to see 
you.  If we were living together you would soon get to 
know me as the brute who grumbles at the cooking and 
wants to shut himself up and work—[mimicking her voice] 
“ And I wouldn’t mind so much if it were work, but all he 
does is to sit in a chair and smoke and stare at nothing 
and swear if any one comes in to ask him if my darling 
new old rose chiffon moiré Directoire corsets match my 
eau-de-Nil suede tussore appliqué garters.”  See ?    
EUPHEMIA.  But—hush !    
[She flies away to the other end of the room.  The 
door opens.  Enter THOMAS.