MAGGIE. You have no sense of humour.
JOHN. Not a spark.
MAGGIE. I've sometimes thought that if you had, it might make you
fonder of me. I think one needs a sense of humour to be fond of me.
JOHN. I remember reading of some one that said it needed a surgical
operation to get a joke into a Scotsman's head.
MAGGIE. Yes, that's been said.
JOHN. What beats me, Maggie, is how you could insert a joke with an
operation.
[He considers this and gives it up.]
MAGGIE. That's not the kind of fun I was thinking of. I mean fun with
the lasses, John--gay, jolly, harmless fun. They could be impudent
fashionable beauties now, stretching themselves to attract you, like
that hiccoughing little devil, and running away from you, and
crooking their fingers to you to run after them.
[He draws a big breath.]
JOHN. No, I never had that.
MAGGIE. It's every man's birthright, and you would have it now but
for me.
JOHN. I can do without, Maggie.
MAGGIE. It's like missing out all the Saturdays.
JOHN. You feel sure, I suppose, that an older man wouldn't suit you
better, Maggie?
MAGGIE. I couldn't feel surer of anything. You're just my ideal.
JOHN. Yes, yes. Well, that's as it should be.
[She threatens him again.]
MAGGIE. David has the document. It's carefully locked away.
JOHN. He would naturally take good care of it.
[The pride of the Wylies deserts her.
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