MRS. CULVER.  Oh!  I’d no idea Mr. Tranto had called already this morning!

HILDEGARDE.  Yes.  I told him all about everything, and we came to a definite understanding.

MRS. CULVER.  Oh!

TRANTO.  I’m only too anxious to explain.  I killed Sampson for the most urgent of all possible reasons.  The Government is thinking of giving him a baronetcy?

CULVER.  Not my baronetcy?

TRANTO.  Precisely.

MRS. CULVER.  But this is the most terrible thing I ever heard of.

TRANTO.  It is.  I met one of my chaps in the street.  He was coming here to see me. (To Culver.) Your answer was expected this morning.  It didn’t arrive.  Evidently your notions about titles had got abroad, and the Government has decided to offer a title to Sampson Straight this afternoon if you refuse.

CULVER.  But how delightfully stupid of the Government.

TRANTO.  On the contrary it was a really brilliant idea.  Sampson Straight is a great literary celebrity, and he’d look mighty well in the Honours List.  Literature’s always a good card to play for Honours.  It makes people think that Cabinet Ministers are educated.

HILDEGARDE.  But I’ve spent half my time in attacking the Government!

TRANTO.  Do you suppose the Government doesn’t know that?  In creating you a baronet (gazes at her) it would gain two advantages—­it would prove how broad-minded it is, and it would turn an enemy into a friend.

HILDEGARDE.  But surely the silly Government would make some enquiries first!

CULVER.  Hilda, do remember what your mother said, and try to live up to your position.  This isn’t the Government that makes enquiries.  It’s the Government that gets things done.

TRANTO.  You perceive the extreme urgency of the crisis.  I had to act instantly.  I did act.  I slew the fellow on the spot, and his obituary will be in my late extra.  The danger was awful—­greater even than I realised at the moment, because I didn’t know till I got back here that there was a genuine and highly unscrupulous Sampson Straight floating about.

MRS. CULVER.  Danger?  What danger?

TRANTO.  Danger of the Government falling, dear lady.  You see, it’s like this.  Assuming that the Government offers a baronetcy to Sampson Straight, and the offer becomes public property, as it infallibly would, then there are three alternatives.  Either the Government has singled out for honour a person who doesn’t exist at all; or it has sought to turn a woman (glancing at Hilda) into a male creature; or it is holding up to public admiration an ex-convict.  Choose which theory you like.  In any case the exposure would mean the immediate ruin of any Government.

HILDEGARDE (to Tranto).  I always thought you wanted the Government to fall.