Edgar Dearing

Dudley: You have some problems with the building of this cathedral, haven't you?

Henry Brougham: Yes.

Dudley: It's a fine cathedral. Ought to look magnificent up there on the top of Sanctuary Hill. Well, Henry, do you believe I am what I say I am?

Henry Brougham: Well, how can I? I've only got your word for it.

Dudley: But you're a bishop. You, of all people, can trust the word of an angel.

Henry Brougham: I'd like to. What do you... What do you propose to do? Perform a miracle?

Dudley: If necessary.

Henry Brougham: Well, why don't you? Why don't you create the cathedral with one wave of your hand?

Dudley: You wouldn't want me to do that, would you? How would you explain it?

Henry Brougham: Well, I...

Dudley: Tell the world you're being visited by an angel? You can't do that.

Julia Brougham: Why don't you show us the manuscript of your book, professor? Will you?

Prof. Wutheridge: My book?

Julia Brougham: Yes, please.

Prof. Wutheridge: Oh, no, no, no, no.

Dudley: You're writing one?

Prof. Wutheridge: Yes.

[... then gives Dudley a suspicious look]

Prof. Wutheridge: You didn't know?

Dudley: You didn't tell me.

Prof. Wutheridge: I described that book in detail in the course of lectures I gave at the university in Vienna. *All* my pupils heard me.

Prof. Wutheridge: [turning to Julia] Now I'm certain this fellow's an impostor.

Dudley: Oh, *that* book? I thought you'd finished that years ago.

Prof. Wutheridge: I'll tell you... I'll tell you about my book. For 20 years I've been talking about it. I've been promising the publishers that it would be delivered next spring. The funny part of it is, in all that time, I haven't written one word. Not one word.

Julia Brougham: Why not?

Prof. Wutheridge: I couldn't think of anything original to say. Just the same old monotonous history, dry as dust. That's the whole story of my life. Frustration. It's a chronic disease... and it's incurable.

Prof. Wutheridge: [continues] Once I was madly... Once I was madly in love with a girl. My friends, she was a vision of delight. A pure enchantress.

Julia Brougham: Why, you've never told me about that.

Prof. Wutheridge: No, that's just the trouble. I never told her about it either. I couldn't find the words. So she married an athlete. A great hulking oaf who never even reached the eighth grade. But he knew how to say, "I love you." Same trouble with my book. Can't find the words.