MRS HUSHABYE. And I tell you, Alf, there is no train at this
hour. The last is nine forty-five.
MANGAN. But a goods train.
MRS HUSHABYE. Not on our little line. They tack a truck on to the
passenger train. What can it have been, Hector?
HECTOR. Heaven's threatening growl of disgust at us useless
futile creatures. [Fiercely]. I tell you, one of two things must
happen. Either out of that darkness some new creation will come
to supplant us as we have supplanted the animals, or the heavens
will fall in thunder and destroy us.
LADY UTTERWORD [in a cool instructive manner, wallowing
comfortably in her hammock]. We have not supplanted the animals,
Hector. Why do you ask heaven to destroy this house, which could
be made quite comfortable if Hesione had any notion of how to
live? Don't you know what is wrong with it?
HECTOR. We are wrong with it. There is no sense in us. We are
useless, dangerous, and ought to be abolished.
LADY UTTERWORD. Nonsense! Hastings told me the very first day he
came here, nearly twenty-four years ago, what is wrong with the
house.
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. What! The numskull said there was something
wrong with my house!
LADY UTTERWORD. I said Hastings said it; and he is not in the
least a numskull.
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER.
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