I admit
buttercups don't often let off loaded pistols in private houses;
I admit there is something demanding explanation.
But I am morally certain there's some blunder, or some joke,
or some allegory, or some accident behind all this.
Well, suppose I'm wrong. We've disarmed him; we're five men
to hold him; he may as well go to a lock-up later on as now.
But suppose there's even a chance of my being right.
Is it anybody's interest here to wash this linen in public?
"Come, I'll take each of you in order. Once take Smith outside that gate,
and you take him into the front page of the evening papers. I know;
I've written the front page myself. Miss Duke, do you or your aunt want
a sort of notice stuck up over your boarding-house--`Doctors shot here.'?
No, no--doctors are rubbish, as I said; but you don't want the rubbish
shot here. Arthur, suppose I am right, or suppose I am wrong.
Smith has appeared as an old schoolfellow of yours. Mark my words,
if he's proved guilty, the Organs of Public Opinion will say you
introduced him. If he's proved innocent, they will say you helped
to collar him. Rosamund, my dear, suppose I am right or wrong.
If he's proved guilty, they'll say you engaged your companion to him.
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