- [first lines]
- Mrs. Avery: Isn't that a bit old-fashioned?
- Nora Batty: The old ways are sometimes the best. Rug-beating is one of the older types of therapy. It's what housewives had to make do with before nervous breakdowns were invented.
- Billy Hardcastle: I don't do knitting by choice. Just Lincoln green tights. The wife flatly refuses, and you can't buy 'em. You ask for Lincoln green, they look at you as if you're thick.
- Truly: I can understand that.
- Billy Hardcastle: That's just what the wife says.
- Clegg: I can understand that.
- Billy Hardcastle: Well, must be off. If you weren't really strong willed around here, people would talk you out of being stupid.