The Admirable Crichton, page 39 by James M. Barrie
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RINE. She must mean Ernest.
LADY MARY. Must I?
AGATHA. It's cruel to say anything against Ernest.
LORD LOAM (firmly). If any one presumes to challenge my position, I shall make short work of him.
AGATHA. Here comes Ernest; now see if you can say these horrid things to his face.
LORD LOAM. I shall teach him his place at once.
LADY MARY (anxiously). But how?
LORD LOAM (chuckling). I have just thought of an extremely amusing way of doing it. (As ERNEST approaches.) Ernest.
ERNEST (loftily). Excuse me, uncle, I'm thinking. I'm planning out the building of this hut.
LORD LOAM. I also have been thinking.
ERNEST. That don't matter.
LORD LOAM. Eh?
ERNEST. Please, please, this is important.
LORD LOAM. I have been thinking that I ought to give you my boots.
ERNEST. What!
LADY MARY. Father.
LORD LOAM (genially). Take them, my boy. (With a rapidity we had not thought him capable of, ERNEST becomes the wearer of the boots.) And now I dare say you want to know why I give them to you, Ernest?
ERNEST (moving up and down in them deliciously). Not at all. The great thing is, 'I've got 'em, I've got 'em.'
LORD LOAM (majestically, but with a knowing look at his daughters). My reason is that, as head of our little party, you, Ernest, shall be our hunter, you shall clear the forests of those savage beasts that make them so dangerous. (Pleasantly.) And now you know, my dear nephew, why I have given you my boots.
ERNEST. This is my answer.
(He kicks off the boots.)
LADY MARY (still anxious). Father, assert yourself.
LORD LOAM. I shall now assert myself. (But how to do it? He has a happy thought.) Call Crichton.
LADY MARY. Oh father.
(CRICHTON comes in answer to a summons, and is followed by TREHERNE.)
ERNEST (wondering a little at LADY MARY'S grave face). Crichton, look here.
LORD LOAM (sturdily). Silence! Crichton, I want your advice as to what I ought to d