STRAIGHT (thunderstruck; aside).  Well, I’m damned! (His whole demeanour changes.  Nevertheless, while tacitly admitting that he is found out, he at once resumes his mild calmness.  To Culver.) I’ve just remembered an appointment of vital importance.  I’m afraid our little talk about the syndicate must be adjourned.

CULVER.  I feared you might have to hurry away.

(Straight bows as a preliminary to departure.)

(John, deeply humiliated, averts his glance from everybody.)

TRANTO.  Here!  But you can’t go off like this.

STRAIGHT.  Why?  Have you anything against me?

TRANTO.  Nothing (casually) except that you’re an impostor.

STRAIGHT.  I fail to see it.

TRANTO.  But haven’t you just said that you write those articles in my paper?

STRAIGHT.  Oh! That!  Well, of course, if I’d known who you were I shouldn’t have dreamed of saying any such thing.  I always try to suit my talk to my company.

TRANTO.  This time you didn’t quite bring it off.

STRAIGHT.  Perhaps I owe you some slight explanation (looking round blandly).

CULVER.  Do you really think so?

STRAIGHT.  The explanation is simplicity itself. (A sudden impulse.) Nothing but that.  Put yourselves in my place.  I come to London.  I hear a vast deal of chatter about some articles in a paper called The Echo by some one calling himself ‘Sampson Straight.’  I also hear that nobody in London knows who Sampson Straight is.  As I happen to be Sampson Straight, and as I have need of all possible personal prestige for the success of my purely patriotic mission, it occurs to me—­in a flash!—­to assert that I am the author of the famous articles....  Well, what more natural?

CULVER.  What indeed?

STRAIGHT (to Tranto).  And may I say that I’m the only genuine Sampson Straight in the United Kingdom, and that in my opinion it was a gross impertinence on the part of your contributor to steal my name?  Why did you let him do it?

TRANTO (beginning reflectively).  Now I hit on that name—­not my contributor.  It was when I was down in Cornwall.  I caught sight of it in an old yellow newspaper in an old yellow hotel, and it struck me at once what a fine signature it would make at the bottom of a slashing article.  By the way, have you ever been in the dock?

STRAIGHT.  Dock?

TRANTO.  I only ask because I seem to remember I saw your splendid name in a report of the local Assizes.

STRAIGHT.  Assizes?

TRANTO.  A, double s (pause) i-z-e-s.

STRAIGHT.  I can afford to be perfectly open.  I was—­at one period of my career—­in prison, but for a quite respectable crime.  Bigamy—­with extenuating circumstances.

MRS. CULVER (greatly upset).  Dear, dear!

STRAIGHT.  It might happen to any man.