H'r'm! Perhaps I'd better mention that you are a
friend of the Trevors?
PIM. Thank you, thank you. (_To_ OLIVIA.) Indeed yes, I spent several
months in Sydney a few years ago.
OLIVIA. How curious! I wonder if we have any friends in common there.
GEORGE (_coughing and gruffly_). Extremely unlikely, I should think.
Sydney is a very big place.
PIM. True, true, but the world is a very small place, Mr. Marden. I had a
remarkable instance of that, coming over on the boat this last time.
GEORGE. Ah! (_Feeling that the conversation is now safe, he resumes his
letter_.)
PIM. Yes. There was a man I used to employ in Sydney some years ago, a
bad fellow, I'm afraid, Mrs. Marden, who had been in prison for some kind
of fraudulent company-promoting and had taken to drink and--and so on.
OLIVIA. Yes, yes, I understand.
PIM. Drinking himself to death, I should have said. I gave him at the
most another year to live. Yet to my amazement the first person I saw as
I stepped on board the boat that brought me to England last week was this
fellow. There was no mistaking him. I spoke to him, in fact; we
recognized each other.
(GEORGE _rises_.)
OLIVIA. Really?
PIM. He was travelling steerage; we didn't meet again on board, and as it
happened at Marseilles, this poor fellow--er--now what was his name? A
very unusual one. Began with a--a T, I think.
OLIVIA (_with suppressed feeling_). Yes, Mr. Pim, yes? (_She puts out a
hand to_ GEORGE.
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