If: A Play in Four Acts, Lord Dunsany [any book recommendations TXT] 📗

JOHN

All right, Mary. [In a lower voice.] I'm only trying to see what he'll say.

MARY

All right, John, only...

ALI

Is there no step that you would wish untrodden, nor stride that you would make where once you faltered?

JOHN

I say, why don't you use it yourself?

ALI

I? I am afraid of the past. But you Engleesh, and the great firm of Briggs, Cater, and Beal; you are afraid of nothing.

JOHN

Ha, ha. Well—I wouldn't go quite as far as that, but—well, give me the crystal.

MARY

Don't take it, John! Don't take it.

JOHN

Why, Mary? It won't hurt me.

MARY

If it can do all that—if it can do all that...

JOHN

Well?

MARY

Why, you might never have met me.

JOHN

Never have met you? I never thought of that.

MARY

Leave the past alone, John.

JOHN

All right, Mary. I needn't use it. But I want to hear about it, it's so odd, it's so what-you-might-call queer; I don't think I ever——- [To ALI.] You mean if I work hard for ten years, which will only be all to-morrow, I may be Governor of the Bank of England to-morrow night.

ALI

Even so.

MARY

O, don't do it, John.

JOHN

But you said—I'll be back here before midnight to-morrow.

ALI

It is so.

JOHN

But the Governor of the Bank of England would live in the City, and he'd have a much bigger house anyway. He wouldn't live in Lewisham.

ALI

The crystal will bring you to this house when the hour is accomplished, even tomorrow night. If you be the great banker you will perhaps come to chastise one of your slaves who will dwell in this house. If you be head of Briggs and Cater you will come to give an edict to one of your firm. Perchance this street will be yours and you will come to show your power unto it. But you will come.

JOHN

And if the house is not mine?

MARY

John! John! Don't.

ALI

Still you will come.

JOHN

Shall I remember?

ALI

No.

JOHN

If I want to do anything different to what I did, how shall I remember when I get back there?

MARY

Don't. Don't do anything different, John.

JOHN

All right.

ALI

Choose just before the hour of the step you desire to change. Memory lingers a little at first, and fades away slowly.

JOHN

Five minutes?

ALI

Even ten.

JOHN

Then I can change one thing. After that I forget.

ALI

Even so. One thing. And the rest follows.

JOHN

Well, it's very good of you to make me this nice present, I'm sure.

ALI

Sell it not. Give it, as I gave it, if the heart impels. So shall it come back one day to the hills that are brighter than grass, made richer by the gratitude of many men. And my master shall smile thereat and the vale shall be glad.

JOHN

It's very good of you, I'm sure.

MARY

I don't like it, John. I don't like tampering with what's gone.

ALI

My master's power is in your hands. Farewell.

[Exit.]

JOHN

I say, he's gone.

MARY

O, he's a dreadful man.

JOHN

I never really meant to take it.

MARY

O, John, I wish you hadn't

JOHN

Why? I'm not going to use it.

MARY

Not going to use it, John?

JOHN

No, no. Not if you don't want me to.

MARY

O, I'm so glad.

JOHN

And besides, I don't want things