Really? I used to live at Sydney many years ago. Do you know
Sydney at all?
GEORGE (detesting Sydney). 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.
OLIVIA. How curious. I wonder if we have any friends in common there.
GEORGE (hastily). Extremely unlikely, I should think. Sydney is a very
big place.
PIM. 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 recognised each other.
OLIVIA. Really?
PIM.
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