The Bicyclers and Three Other Farces, John Kendrick Bangs [best short novels of all time .txt] 📗

/>
Perkins. Nothing--only that for action continuous and situations overpowering The Lyons Mail isn't a marker to an evening of preparation for Amateur Dramatics.

Enter Jennie.

Jennie. Excuse me, mim, but the coachman says shall he wait any longer? He's been there three hours now.

[CURTAIN]



THE FATAL MESSAGE

CHARACTERS:


MR. THADDEUS PERKINS, in charge of the curtain.
MRS. THADDEUS PERKINS, cast for Lady Ellen.
MISS ANDREWS, cast for the maid.
MR. EDWARD BRADLEY, an under-study.
MRS. EDWARD BRADLEY, cast for Lady Amaranth.
MR. ROBERT YARDSLEY, stage-manager.
MR. JACK BARLOW, cast for Fenderson Featherhead.
MR. CHESTER HENDERSON, an absentee.
JENNIE, a professional waitress.


The scene is laid in the library of the Perkins mansion, on the afternoon of the day upon which an amateur dramatic performance is to be held therein. The Perkins house has been given over to the dramatic association having the matter in charge. At right of library a scenic doorway is hung. At left a drop-curtain is arranged, behind which is the middle hall of the Perkins dwelling, where the expected audience are to sit. The unoccupied wall spaces are hung with paper-muslin. The apartment is fitted up generally to resemble an English drawing-room; table and chair at centre. At rear stands a painted-canvas conservatory entrance, on left of which is a long oaken chest. The curtain rising discovers Mrs. Perkins giving a few finishing touches to the scene, with Mr. Perkins gazing curiously about the room.

Perkins. Well, they've transformed this library into a scene of bewitching beauty--haven't they? These paper-muslin walls are a dream of loveliness. I suppose, as the possessor of all this, I ought to be supremely happy--only I wish that canvas conservatory door hadn't been tacked over my reference-books. I want to look up some points about--

Mrs. Perkins. Oh, never mind your books, Thaddeus; it's only for one night. Can't you take a minute's rest?

Perkins. One night? I like that. It's been there two already, and it's in for to-night, and all day to-morrow, I suppose. It'll take all day to-morrow to clean up, I'll wager a hat. I'm beginning to rue the hour I ever allowed the house of Perkins to be lured into the drama.

Mrs. Perkins. You're better off than I am. I've got to take part, and I don't half know my lines.

Perkins. I? I better off? I'd like to know if I haven't got to sit out in front and watch you people fulfil your diabolical mission in your doubly diabolical way, and grin at the fearful jokes in the dialogue I've been listening to for weeks, and make the audience feel that they are welcome when they're not. What's been done with my desk?

Mrs. Perkins. It's down in the laundry. You're about as--

Perkins. Oh, is it? Laundry is a nice place for a desk. Plenty of starch handy to stiffen up a writer's nerve, and scrubbing-boards galore to polish up his wits. And I suppose my papers are up in the attic?

Mrs. Perkins. No; they're stowed away safely in the nursery. Now please don't complain!

Perkins. Me? Complain? I never complain. I didn't say a word when Yardsley had my Cruikshanks torn from their shelves and chucked into a clothes-basket and carried into the butler's pantry, did I? Did I say as much as one little word? I wanted to say one little word, I admit, but I didn't. Did I? If I did, I withdraw it. I'm fond of this sort of thing. The greatest joy in life is to be found in arranging and rearranging a library, and I seem to be in for joy enough to kill. What time are the--these amateur Thespians coming?

Mrs. Perkins (looking at her watch). They're due now; it's half-past four. (Sits down and opens play-book. Rehearses.) No, not for all the world would I do this thing, Lord Muddleton. There is no need to ask it of me. I am firm. I shall--

Perkins, Oh, let up, my dear! I've been getting that for breakfast, dinner, and tea for two weeks now, and I'm awfully tired of it. When I asked for a second cup of coffee at breakfast Sunday, you retorted, "No, not for all the world would I do this thing, Lord Muddleton!" When I asked you where my dress ties were, you informed me that it was "what baseness," or words to that effect; and so on, until I hardly know where I am at. (Catches sight of the chest.) Hello! How did that happen to escape the general devastation? What are you going to do with that oak chest?

Mrs. Perkins. It is for the real earl to hide in just before he confronts Muddleton with the evidence of his crime.

Perkins. But--that holds all my loose prints, Bess. By Jove! I can't have that, you know. You amateur counterfeiters have got to understand just one thing. I'll submit to the laundering of my manuscripts, the butler's-pantrying of my Cruikshanks, but I'll be hanged if I'll allow even a real earl, much less a base imitation of one, to wallow in my engravings.

Mrs. Perkins. You needn't worry about your old engravings. They're perfectly safe, I've put them in the Saratoga trunk in the attic. (Rehearsing.) And if you ask it of me once again, I shall have to summon my servants to have you shown the door. Henry Cobb is the friend of my girlhood, and--

Perkins. Henry Cobb be--

Mrs. Perkins. Thaddeus!

Perkins. I don't care, Bess, if Henry Cobb was the only friend you ever had. I object to having my prints dumped into a Saratoga trunk in order that he may confront Muddleton and regain the lost estates of Puddingford by hiding in my chest. A gay earl Yardsley makes, anyhow; and as for Barlow, he looks like an ass in that yellow- chrysanthemum wig. No man with yellow hair like that could track such a villain as Henderson makes Muddleton out to be. Fact is, Henderson is the only decent part of the show.

Mrs. Perkins (rehearsing). What if he is weak? Then shall I still more strongly show myself his friend. Poor? Does not--

Perkins. Oh, I suppose it does--(Bell rings.) There comes this apology for a real earl, I fancy. I'll let him in myself. I suppose Jennie has got as much as she can do sweeping my manuscripts out of the laundry, and keeping my verses from scorching the wash. [Exit.

Mrs. Perkins. It's too bad of Thaddeus to go on like this. As if I hadn't enough to worry me without a cross husband to manage. Heigho!

Enter Perkins with Yardsley. Yardsley holds bicycle cap in hand.

Yardsley. By Jove! I'm tired. Everything's been going wrong to- day. Overslept myself, to begin with, and somebody stole my hat at the club, and left me this bicycle cap in its place. How are you getting along, Mrs. Perkins? You weren't letter perfect yesterday, you know.

Mrs. Perkins. I'm getting it all right, I think. I've been rehearsing all day.

Perkins. You bet your life on that, Henry Cobb, real Earl of Puddingford. If you aren't restored to your estates and title this night, it won't be for any lack of suffering on my part. Give me your biking cap, unless you want to use it in the play. I'll hang it up. [Exit.

Yardsley. Thanks. (Looks about the room.) Everything here seems to be right.

Perkins returns.

Mrs. Perkins (rehearsing). And henceforth, my lord, let us understand one another.

Perkins. Certainly, my dear. I'll go and have myself translated. Would you prefer me in French, German, or English?

Yardsley. I hope it goes all right to-night. But, I must say, I don't like the prospect. This beastly behavior of Henderson's has knocked me out.

Perkins. What's the matter with Henderson?

Mrs. Perkins. He hasn't withdrawn, has he?

Yardsley. That's just what he has done. He sent me word this morning.

Mrs. Perkins. But what excuse does he offer? At the last moment, too!

Yardsley. None at all--absolutely. There was some airy persiflage in his note about having to go to Boston at six o'clock. Grandmother's sick or something. He writes so badly I couldn't make out whether she was rich or sick. I fancy it's a little of both. Possibly if she wasn't rich he wouldn't care so much when she fell ill. That's the trouble with these New-Englanders, anyhow--they've always got grandmothers to fall down at crucial moments. Next time I go into this sort of thing it'll be with a crowd without known ancestors.

Perkins. 'Tisn't Chet's fault, though. You don't suspect him of having poisoned his grandmother just to get out of playing, do you?

Mrs. Perkins. Oh, Thaddeus, do be serious!

Perkins. I was never more so, my dear. Poisoning one's grandmother is no light crime.

Yardsley. Well, I've a notion that the whole thing is faked up. Henderson has an idea that he's a little tin Booth, and just because I called him down the other night at our first rehearsal he's mad. That's the milk in the cocoanut, I think. He's one of those fellows you can't tell anything to, and when I kicked because he wore a white tie with a dinner coat, he got mad and said he was going to dress the part his own way or not at all.

Perkins. I think he was right.

Yardsley. Oh yes, of course I'm never right. What am I stage- manager for?

Perkins. Oh, as for that, of course, you are the one in authority, but you were wrong about the white tie and the dinner coat. He was a bogus earl, an adventurer, wasn't he?

Yardsley. Yes, he was, but--

Perkins. Well, no real earl would wear a white tie with a dinner coat unless he were visiting in America. I grant you that if he were going to a reception in New York he might wear a pair of golf trousers with a dinner coat, but in this instance his dress simply showed his bogusity, as it were. He merely dressed the part.

Yardsley. He doesn't want to make it too plain, however, so I was right after all. His villany is to come as a painful surprise.

Mrs. Perkins. But what are we to do? Have you got anybody else to take his part?

Yardsley. Yes. I telegraphed right off to Bradley, explained as far as I could in a telegram without using all the balance in the treasury, and he answered all right. Said he'd bone at the part all day, and would be here at five letter perfect.

Mrs. Perkins (with a sigh of relief). Good. He's very quick