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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Fanny's First Play, by George Bernard Shaw
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Fanny's First Play
+
+Author: George Bernard Shaw
+
+Release Date: May, 2004 [EBook #5698]
+Posting Date: March 28, 2009
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FANNY'S FIRST PLAY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Ron Burkey
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+FANNY'S FIRST PLAY
+
+BY BERNARD SHAW
+
+1911
+
+
+
+This text was taken from a printed volume containing the plays
+"Misalliance", "The Dark Lady of the Sonnets", "Fanny's First Play", and
+the essay "A Treatise on Parents and Children".
+
+Notes on the editing: Italicized text is delimited with underlines
+("_ _"). Punctuation and spelling retained as in the printed text. Shaw
+intentionally spelled many words according to a non-standard system. For
+example, "don't" is given as "dont" (without apostrophe), "Dr." is given
+as "Dr" (without a period at the end), and "Shakespeare" is given as
+"Shakespear" (no "e" at the end). Where several characters in the play
+are speaking at once, I have indicated it with vertical bars ("|"). The
+pound (currency) symbol has been replaced by the word "pounds".
+
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE TO FANNY'S FIRST PLAY
+
+Fanny's First Play, being but a potboiler, needs no preface. But its
+lesson is not, I am sorry to say, unneeded. Mere morality, or the
+substitution of custom for conscience was once accounted a shameful and
+cynical thing: people talked of right and wrong, of honor and dishonor,
+of sin and grace, of salvation and damnation, not of morality and
+immorality. The word morality, if we met it in the Bible, would surprise
+us as much as the word telephone or motor car. Nowadays we do not seem
+to know that there is any other test of conduct except morality; and
+the result is that the young had better have their souls awakened by
+disgrace, capture by the police, and a month's hard labor, than drift
+along from their cradles to their graves doing what other people do for
+no other reason than that other people do it, and knowing nothing of
+good and evil, of courage and cowardice, or indeed anything but how to
+keep hunger and concupiscence and fashionable dressing within the bounds
+of good taste except when their excesses can be concealed. Is it any
+wonder that I am driven to offer to young people in our suburbs the
+desperate advice: Do something that will get you into trouble? But
+please do not suppose that I defend a state of things which makes such
+advice the best that can be given under the circumstances, or that I do
+not know how difficult it is to find out a way of getting into trouble
+that will combine loss of respectability with integrity of self-respect
+and reasonable consideration for other peoples' feelings and interests
+on every point except their dread of losing their own respectability.
+But when there's a will there's a way. I hate to see dead people walking
+about: it is unnatural. And our respectable middle class people are all
+as dead as mutton. Out of the mouth of Mrs Knox I have delivered on them
+the judgment of her God.
+
+The critics whom I have lampooned in the induction to this play under
+the names of Trotter, Vaughan, and Gunn will forgive me: in fact Mr
+Trotter forgave me beforehand, and assisted the make-up by which Mr
+Claude King so successfully simulated his personal appearance. The
+critics whom I did not introduce were somewhat hurt, as I should have
+been myself under the same circumstances; but I had not room for them
+all; so I can only apologize and assure them that I meant no disrespect.
+
+The concealment of the authorship, if a _secret de Polichinelle_ can be
+said to involve concealment, was a necessary part of the play. In so far
+as it was effectual, it operated as a measure of relief to those critics
+and playgoers who are so obsessed by my strained legendary reputation
+that they approach my plays in a condition which is really one of
+derangement, and are quite unable to conceive a play of mine as anything
+but a trap baited with paradoxes, and designed to compass their ethical
+perversion and intellectual confusion. If it were possible, I should put
+forward all my plays anonymously, or hire some less disturbing person,
+as Bacon is said to have hired Shakespear, to father my plays for me.
+
+Fanny's First Play was performed for the first time at the Little
+Theatre in the Adelphi, London, on the afternoon of Wednesday, April
+19th 1911.
+
+
+
+
+FANNY'S FIRST PLAY
+
+
+
+
+INDUCTION
+
+
+_The end of a saloon in an old-fashioned country house (Florence Towers,
+the property of Count O'Dowda) has been curtained off to form a stage
+for a private theatrical performance. A footman in grandiose Spanish
+livery enters before the curtain, on its O.P. side._
+
+
+FOOTMAN. [announcing] Mr Cecil Savoyard. [Cecil Savoyard comes in:
+a middle-aged man in evening dress and a fur-lined overcoat. He is
+surprised to find nobody to receive him. So is the Footman]. Oh, beg
+pardon, sir: I thought the Count was here. He was when I took up your
+name. He must have gone through the stage into the library. This way,
+sir. [He moves towards the division in the middle of the curtains].
+
+SAVOYARD. Half a mo. [The Footman stops]. When does the play begin?
+Half-past eight?
+
+FOOTMAN. Nine, sir.
+
+SAVOYARD. Oh, good. Well, will you telephone to my wife at the George
+that it's not until nine?
+
+FOOTMAN. Right, sir. Mrs Cecil Savoyard, sir?
+
+SAVOYARD. No: Mrs William Tinkler. Dont forget.
+
+THE FOOTMAN. Mrs Tinkler, sir. Right, sir. [The Count comes in through
+the curtains]. Here is the Count, sir. [Announcing] Mr Cecil Savoyard,
+sir. [He withdraws].
+
+COUNT O'DOWDA. [A handsome man of fifty, dressed with studied elegance
+a hundred years out of date, advancing cordially to shake hands with his
+visitor] Pray excuse me, Mr Savoyard. I suddenly recollected that all
+the bookcases in the library were locked--in fact theyve never been
+opened since we came from Venice--and as our literary guests will
+probably use the library a good deal, I just ran in to unlock
+everything.
+
+SAVOYARD. Oh, you mean the dramatic critics. M'yes. I suppose theres a
+smoking room?
+
+THE COUNT. My study is available. An old-fashioned house, you
+understand. Wont you sit down, Mr Savoyard?
+
+SAVOYARD. Thanks. [They sit. Savoyard, looking at his host's obsolete
+costume, continues] I had no idea you were going to appear in the piece
+yourself.
+
+THE COUNT. I am not. I wear this costume because--well, perhaps I had
+better explain the position, if it interests you.
+
+SAVOYARD. Certainly.
+
+THE COUNT. Well, you see, Mr Savoyard, I'm rather a stranger in your
+world. I am not, I hope, a modern man in any sense of the word. I'm
+not really an Englishman: my family is Irish: Ive lived all my life in
+Italy--in Venice mostly--my very title is a foreign one: I am a Count of
+the Holy Roman Empire.
+
+SAVOYARD. Where's that?
+
+THE COUNT. At present, nowhere, except as a memory and an ideal.
+[Savoyard inclines his head respectfully to the ideal]. But I am by
+no means an idealogue. I am not content with beautiful dreams: I want
+beautiful realities.
+
+SAVOYARD. Hear, hear! I'm all with you there--when you can get them.
+
+THE COUNT. Why not get them? The difficulty is not that there are no
+beautiful realities, Mr Savoyard: the difficulty is that so few of
+us know them when we see them. We have inherited from the past a vast
+treasure of beauty--of imperishable masterpieces of poetry, of painting,
+of sculpture, of architecture, of music, of exquisite fashions in
+dress, in furniture, in domestic decoration. We can contemplate these
+treasures. We can reproduce many of them. We can buy a few inimitable
+originals. We can shut out the nineteenth century--
+
+SAVOYARD. [correcting him] The twentieth.
+
+THE COUNT. To me the century I shut out will always be the nineteenth
+century, just as your national anthem will always be God Save the Queen,
+no matter how many kings may succeed. I found England befouled with
+industrialism: well, I did what Byron did: I simply refused to live in
+it. You remember Byron's words: "I am sure my bones would not rest in an
+English grave, or my clay mix with the earth of that country. I believe
+the thought would drive me mad on my deathbed could I suppose that any
+of my friends would be base enough to convey my carcase back to her
+soil. I would not even feed her worms if I could help it."
+
+SAVOYARD. Did Byron say that?
+
+THE COUNT. He did, sir.
+
+SAVOYARD. It dont sound like him. I saw a good deal of him at one time.
+
+THE COUNT. You! But how is that possible? You are too young.
+
+SAVOYARD. I was quite a lad, of course. But I had a job in the original
+production of Our Boys.
+
+THE COUNT. My dear sir, not that Byron. Lord Byron, the poet.
+
+SAVOYARD. Oh, I beg your pardon. I thought you were talking of the
+Byron. So you prefer living abroad?
+
+THE COUNT. I find England ugly and Philistine. Well, I dont live in it.
+I find modern houses ugly. I dont live in them: I have a palace on the
+grand canal. I find modern clothes prosaic. I dont wear them, except, of
+course, in the street. My ears are offended by the Cockney twang: I keep
+out of hearing of it and speak and listen to Italian. I find Beethoven's
+music coarse and restless, and Wagner's senseless and detestable. I do
+not listen to them. I listen to Cimarosa, to Pergolesi, to Gluck and
+Mozart. Nothing simpler, sir.
+
+SAVOYARD. It's all right when you can afford it.
+
+THE COUNT. Afford it! My dear Mr Savoyard, if you are a man with a sense
+of beauty you can make an earthly paradise for yourself in Venice on
+1500 pounds a year, whilst our wretched vulgar industrial millionaires
+are spending twenty thousand on the amusements of billiard markers. I
+assure you I am a poor man according to modern ideas. But I have never
+had anything less than the very best that life has produced. It is my
+good fortune to have a beautiful and lovable daughter; and that girl,
+sir, has never seen an ugly sight or heard an ugly sound that I could
+spare her; and she has certainly never worn an ugly dress or tasted
+coarse food or bad wine in her life. She has lived in a palace; and her
+perambulator was a gondola. Now you know the sort of people we are, Mr
+Savoyard. You can imagine how we feel here.
+
+SAVOYARD. Rather out of it, eh?
+
+THE COUNT. Out of it, sir! Out of what?
+
+SAVOYARD. Well, out of everything.
+
+THE COUNT. Out of soot and fog and mud and east wind; out of vulgarity
+and ugliness, hypocrisy and greed, superstition and stupidity. Out of
+all this, and in the sunshine, in the enchanted region of which great
+artists alone have had the secret, in the sacred footsteps of Byron, of
+Shelley, of the Brownings, of Turner and Ruskin. Dont you envy me, Mr
+Savoyard?
+
+SAVOYARD. Some of us must live in England, you know, just to keep the
+place going. Besides--though, mind you, I dont say it isnt all right
+from the high art point of view and all that--three weeks of it would
+drive me melancholy mad. However, I'm glad you told me, because it
+explains why it is you dont seem to know your way about much in England.
+I hope, by the way, that everything has given satisfaction to your
+daughter.
+
+THE COUNT. She seems quite satisfied. She tells me that the actors you
+sent down are perfectly suited to their parts, and very nice people
+to work with. I understand she had some difficulties at the first
+rehearsals with the gentleman you call the producer, because he hadnt
+read the play; but the moment he found out what it was all about
+everything went smoothly.
+
+SAVOYARD. Havnt you seen the rehearsals?
+
+THE COUNT. Oh no. I havnt been allowed even to meet any of the company.
+All I can tell you is that the hero is a Frenchman [Savoyard is rather
+scandalized]: I asked her not to have an English hero. That is all I
+know. [Ruefully] I havnt been consulted even about the costumes, though
+there, I think, I could have been some use.
+
+SAVOYARD. [puzzled] But there arnt any costumes.
+
+THE COUNT. [seriously shocked] What! No costumes! Do you mean to say it
+is a modern play?
+
+SAVOYARD. I dont know: I didnt read it. I handed it to Billy
+Burjoyce--the producer, you know--and left it to him to select the
+company and so on. But I should have had to order the costumes if there
+had been any. There wernt.
+
+THE COUNT. [smiling as he recovers from his alarm] I understand. She
+has taken the costumes into her own hands. She is an expert in beautiful
+costumes. I venture to promise you, Mr Savoyard, that what you are about
+to see will be like a Louis Quatorze ballet painted by Watteau. The
+heroine will be an exquisite Columbine, her lover a dainty Harlequin,
+her father a picturesque Pantaloon, and the valet who hoodwinks the
+father and brings about the happiness of the lovers a grotesque but
+perfectly tasteful Punchinello or Mascarille or Sganarelle.
+
+SAVOYARD. I see. That makes three men; and the clown and policeman will
+make five. Thats why you wanted five men in the company.
+
+THE COUNT. My dear sir, you dont suppose I mean that vulgar, ugly,
+silly, senseless, malicious and destructive thing, the harlequinade of
+a nineteenth century English Christmas pantomime! What was it after
+all but a stupid attempt to imitate the success made by the genius of
+Grimaldi a hundred years ago? My daughter does not know of the existence
+of such a thing. I refer to the graceful and charming fantasies of the
+Italian and French stages of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
+
+SAVOYARD. Oh, I beg pardon. I quite agree that harlequinades are rot.
+Theyve been dropped at all smart theatres. But from what Billy Burjoyce
+told me I got the idea that your daughter knew her way about here, and
+had seen a lot of plays. He had no idea she'd been away in Venice all
+the time.
+
+THE COUNT. Oh, she has not been. I should have explained that two
+years ago my daughter left me to complete her education at Cambridge.
+Cambridge was my own University; and though of course there were no
+women there in my time, I felt confident that if the atmosphere of the
+eighteenth century still existed anywhere in England, it would be at
+Cambridge. About three months ago she wrote to me and asked whether I
+wished to give her a present on her next birthday. Of course I said
+yes; and she then astonished and delighted me by telling me that she
+had written a play, and that the present she wanted was a private
+performance of it with real actors and real critics.
+
+SAVOYARD. Yes: thats what staggered me. It was easy enough to engage
+a company for a private performance: it's done often enough. But the
+notion of having critics was new. I hardly knew how to set about it.
+They dont expect private engagements; and so they have no agents.
+Besides, I didnt know what to offer them. I knew that they were cheaper
+than actors, because they get long engagements: forty years sometimes;
+but thats no rule for a single job. Then theres such a lot of them: on
+first nights they run away with all your stalls: you cant find a decent
+place for your own mother. It would have cost a fortune to bring the
+lot.
+
+THE COUNT. Of course I never dreamt of having them all. Only a few
+first-rate representative men.
+
+SAVOYARD. Just so. All you want is a few sample opinions. Out of a
+hundred notices you wont find more than four at the outside that say
+anything different. Well, Ive got just the right four for you. And what
+do you think it has cost me?
+
+THE COUNT. [shrugging his shoulders] I cannot guess.
+
+SAVOYARD. Ten guineas, and expenses. I had to give Flawner Bannal ten.
+He wouldnt come for less; and he asked fifty. I had to give it, because
+if we hadnt had him we might just as well have had nobody at all.
+
+THE COUNT. But what about the others, if Mr Flannel--
+
+SAVOYARD. [shocked] Flawner Bannal.
+
+THE COUNT. --if Mr Bannal got the whole ten?
+
+SAVOYARD. Oh, I managed that. As this is a high-class sort of thing, the
+first man I went for was Trotter.
+
+THE COUNT. Oh indeed. I am very glad you have secured Mr Trotter. I have
+read his Playful Impressions.
+
+SAVOYARD. Well, I was rather in a funk about him. Hes not exactly what
+I call approachable; and he was a bit stand-off at first. But when I
+explained and told him your daughter--
+
+THE COUNT. [interrupting in alarm] You did not say that the play was by
+her, I hope?
+
+SAVOYARD. No: thats been kept a dead secret. I just said your daughter
+has asked for a real play with a real author and a real critic and all
+the rest of it. The moment I mentioned the daughter I had him. He has
+a daughter of his own. Wouldnt hear of payment! Offered to come just to
+please her! Quite human. I was surprised.
+
+THE COUNT. Extremely kind of him.
+
+SAVOYARD. Then I went to Vaughan, because he does music as well as the
+drama: and you said you thought there would be music. I told him Trotter
+would feel lonely without him; so he promised like a bird. Then I
+thought youd like one of the latest sort: the chaps that go for the
+newest things and swear theyre oldfashioned. So I nailed Gilbert Gunn.
+The four will give you a representative team. By the way [looking at his
+watch] theyll be here presently.
+
+THE COUNT. Before they come, Mr Savoyard, could you give me any hints
+about them that would help me to make a little conversation with them?
+I am, as you said, rather out of it in England; and I might unwittingly
+say something tactless.
+
+SAVOYARD. Well, let me see. As you dont like English people, I dont know
+that youll get on with Trotter, because hes thoroughly English: never
+happy except when hes in Paris, and speaks French so unnecessarily well
+that everybody there spots him as an Englishman the moment he opens
+his mouth. Very witty and all that. Pretends to turn up his nose at
+the theatre and says people make too much fuss about art [the Count is
+extremely indignant]. But thats only his modesty, because art is his own
+line, you understand. Mind you dont chaff him about Aristotle.
+
+THE COUNT. Why should I chaff him about Aristotle?
+
+SAVOYARD. Well, I dont know; but its one of the recognized ways of
+chaffing him. However, youll get on with him all right: hes a man of
+the world and a man of sense. The one youll have to be careful about is
+Vaughan.
+
+THE COUNT. In what way, may I ask?
+
+SAVOYARD. Well, Vaughan has no sense of humor; and if you joke with
+him he'll think youre insulting him on purpose. Mind: it's not that he
+doesnt see a joke: he does; and it hurts him. A comedy scene makes him
+sore all over: he goes away black and blue, and pitches into the play
+for all hes worth.
+
+THE COUNT. But surely that is a very serious defect in a man of his
+profession?
+
+SAVOYARD. Yes it is, and no mistake. But Vaughan is honest, and dont
+care a brass farthing what he says, or whether it pleases anybody or
+not; and you must have one man of that sort to say the things that
+nobody else will say.
+
+THE COUNT. It seems to me to carry the principle of division of labor
+too far, this keeping of the honesty and the other qualities in separate
+compartments. What is Mr Gunn's speciality, if I may ask?
+
+SAVOYARD. Gunn is one of the intellectuals.
+
+THE COUNT. But arnt they all intellectuals?
+
+SAVOYARD. Lord! no: heaven forbid! You must be careful what you say
+about that: I shouldnt like anyone to call me an Intellectual: I dont
+think any Englishman would! They dont count really, you know; but
+still it's rather the thing to have them. Gunn is one of the young
+intellectuals: he writes plays himself. Hes useful because he pitches
+into the older intellectuals who are standing in his way. But you may
+take it from me that none of these chaps really matter. Flawner Bannal's
+your man. Bannal really represents the British playgoer. When he likes
+a thing, you may take your oath there are a hundred thousand people in
+London thatll like it if they can only be got to know about it. Besides,
+Bannal's knowledge of the theatre is an inside knowledge. We know him;
+and he knows us. He knows the ropes: he knows his way about: he knows
+what hes talking about.
+
+THE COUNT. [with a little sigh] Age and experience, I suppose?
+
+SAVOYARD. Age! I should put him at twenty at the very outside, myself.
+It's not an old man's job after all, is it? Bannal may not ride the
+literary high horse like Trotter and the rest; but I'd take his opinion
+before any other in London. Hes the man in the street; and thats what
+you want.
+
+THE COUNT. I am almost sorry you didnt give the gentleman his full
+terms. I should not have grudged the fifty guineas for a sound opinion.
+He may feel shabbily treated.
+
+SAVOYARD. Well, let him. It was a bit of side, his asking fifty. After
+all, what is he? Only a pressman. Jolly good business for him to earn
+ten guineas: hes done the same job often enough for half a quid, I
+expect.
+
+_Fanny O'Dowda comes precipitately through the curtains, excited and
+nervous. A girl of nineteen in a dress synchronous with her father's._
+
+FANNY. Papa, papa, the critics have come. And one of them has a cocked
+hat and sword like a-- [she notices Savoyard] Oh, I beg your pardon.
+
+THE COUNT. This is Mr Savoyard, your impresario, my dear.
+
+FANNY. [shaking hands] How do you do?
+
+SAVOYARD. Pleased to meet you, Miss O'Dowda. The cocked hat is all
+right. Trotter is a member of the new Academic Committee. He induced
+them to go in for a uniform like the French Academy; and I asked him to
+wear it.
+
+THE FOOTMAN. [announcing] Mr Trotter, Mr Vaughan, Mr Gunn, Mr Flawner
+Bannal. [The four critics enter. Trotter wears a diplomatic dress, with
+sword and three-cornered hat. His age is about 50. Vaughan is 40. Gunn
+is 30. Flawner Bannal is 20 and is quite unlike the others. They can be
+classed at sight as professional men: Bannal is obviously one of those
+unemployables of the business class who manage to pick up a living by a
+sort of courage which gives him cheerfulness, conviviality, and
+bounce, and is helped out positively by a slight turn for writing, and
+negatively by a comfortable ignorance and lack of intuition which hides
+from him all the dangers and disgraces that keep men of finer perception
+in check. The Count approaches them hospitably].
+
+SAVOYARD. Count O'Dowda, gentlemen. Mr Trotter.
+
+TROTTER. [looking at the Count's costume] Have I the pleasure of meeting
+a confrere?
+
+THE COUNT. No, sir: I have no right to my costume except the right of a
+lover of the arts to dress myself handsomely. You are most welcome, Mr
+Trotter. [Trotter bows in the French manner].
+
+SAVOYARD. Mr Vaughan.
+
+THE COUNT. How do you do, Mr Vaughan?
+
+VAUGHAN. Quite well, thanks.
+
+SAVOYARD. Mr Gunn.
+
+THE COUNT. Delighted to make your acquaintance, Mr Gunn.
+
+GUNN. Very pleased.
+
+SAVOYARD. Mr Flawner Bannal.
+
+THE COUNT. Very kind of you to come, Mr Bannal.
+
+BANNAL. Dont mention it.
+
+THE COUNT. Gentlemen, my daughter. [They all bow]. We are very greatly
+indebted to you, gentlemen, for so kindly indulging her whim. [The
+dressing bell sounds. The Count looks at his watch]. Ah! The dressing
+bell, gentlemen. As our play begins at nine, I have had to put forward
+the dinner hour a little. May I shew you to your rooms? [He goes out,
+followed by all the men, except Trotter, who, going last, is detained by
+Fanny].
+
+FANNY. Mr Trotter: I want to say something to you about this play.
+
+TROTTER. No: thats forbidden. You must not attempt to _souffler_ the
+critic.
+
+FANNY. Oh, I would not for the world try to influence your opinion.
+
+TROTTER. But you do: you are influencing me very shockingly. You invite
+me to this charming house, where I'm about to enjoy a charming dinner.
+And just before the dinner I'm taken aside by a charming young lady to
+be talked to about the play. How can you expect me to be impartial? God
+forbid that I should set up to be a judge, or do more than record an
+impression; but my impressions can be influenced; and in this case youre
+influencing them shamelessly all the time.
+
+FANNY. Dont make me more nervous than I am already, Mr Trotter. If you
+knew how I feel!
+
+TROTTER. Naturally: your first party: your first appearance in England
+as hostess. But youre doing it beautifully. Dont be afraid. Every
+_nuance_ is perfect.
+
+FANNY. It's so kind of you to say so, Mr Trotter. But that isnt whats
+the matter. The truth is, this play is going to give my father a
+dreadful shock.
+
+TROTTER. Nothing unusual in that, I'm sorry to say. Half the young
+ladies in London spend their evenings making their fathers take them to
+plays that are not fit for elderly people to see.
+
+FANNY. Oh, I know all about that; but you cant understand what it means
+to Papa. Youre not so innocent as he is.
+
+TROTTER. [remonstrating] My dear young lady--
+
+FANNY. I dont mean morally innocent: everybody who reads your articles
+knows youre as innocent as a lamb.
+
+TROTTER. What!
+
+FANNY. Yes, Mr Trotter: Ive seen a good deal of life since I came to
+England; and I assure you that to me youre a mere baby: a dear, good,
+well-meaning, delightful, witty, charming baby; but still just a wee
+lamb in a world of wolves. Cambridge is not what it was in my father's
+time.
+
+TROTTER. Well, I must say!
+
+FANNY. Just so. Thats one of our classifications in the Cambridge Fabian
+Society.
+
+TROTTER. Classifications? I dont understand.
+
+FANNY. We classify our aunts into different sorts. And one of the sorts
+is the "I must says."
+
+TROTTER. I withdraw "I must say." I substitute "Blame my cats!" No: I
+substitute "Blame my kittens!" Observe, Miss O'Dowda: kittens. I say
+again in the teeth of the whole Cambridge Fabian Society, kittens.
+Impertinent little kittens. Blame them. Smack them. I guess what is on
+your conscience. This play to which you have lured me is one of those in
+which members of Fabian Societies instruct their grandmothers in the art
+of milking ducks. And you are afraid it will shock your father. Well,
+I hope it will. And if he consults me about it I shall recommend him to
+smack you soundly and pack you off to bed.
+
+FANNY. Thats one of your prettiest literary attitudes, Mr Trotter;
+but it doesnt take me in. You see, I'm much more conscious of what you
+really are than you are yourself, because weve discussed you thoroughly
+at Cambridge; and youve never discussed yourself, have you?
+
+TROTTER. I--
+
+FANNY. Of course you havnt; so you see it's no good Trottering at me.
+
+TROTTER. Trottering!
+
+FANNY. Thats what we call it at Cambridge.
+
+TROTTER. If it were not so obviously a stage _cliche_, I should say Damn
+Cambridge. As it is, I blame my kittens. And now let me warn you. If
+youre going to be a charming healthy young English girl, you may coax
+me. If youre going to be an unsexed Cambridge Fabian virago, I'll treat
+you as my intellectual equal, as I would treat a man.
+
+FANNY. [adoringly] But how few men are your intellectual equals, Mr
+Trotter!
+
+TROTTER. I'm getting the worst of this.
+
+FANNY. Oh no. Why do you say that?
+
+TROTTER. May I remind you that the dinner-bell will ring presently?
+
+FANNY. What does it matter? We're both ready. I havnt told you yet what
+I want you to do for me.
+
+TROTTER. Nor have you particularly predisposed me to do it, except out
+of pure magnanimity. What is it?
+
+FANNY. I dont mind this play shocking my father morally. It's good for
+him to be shocked morally. It's all that the young can do for the old,
+to shock them and keep them up to date. But I know that this play will
+shock him artistically; and that terrifies me. No moral consideration
+could make a breach between us: he would forgive me for anything of that
+kind sooner or later; but he never gives way on a point of art. I darent
+let him know that I love Beethoven and Wagner; and as to Strauss, if he
+heard three bars of Elektra, it'd part us for ever. Now what I want you
+to do is this. If hes very angry--if he hates the play, because it's a
+modern play--will you tell him that it's not my fault; that its style
+and construction, and so forth, are considered the very highest art
+nowadays; that the author wrote it in the proper way for repertory
+theatres of the most superior kind--you know the kind of plays I mean?
+
+TROTTER. [emphatically] I think I know the sort of entertainments you
+mean. But please do not beg a vital question by calling them plays. I
+dont pretend to be an authority; but I have at least established the
+fact that these productions, whatever else they may be, are certainly
+not plays.
+
+FANNY. The authors dont say they are.
+
+TROTTER. [warmly] I am aware that one author, who is, I blush to say, a
+personal friend of mine, resorts freely to the dastardly subterfuge of
+calling them conversations, discussions, and so forth, with the express
+object of evading criticism. But I'm not to be disarmed by such tricks.
+I say they are not plays. Dialogues, if you will. Exhibitions of
+character, perhaps: especially the character of the author. Fictions,
+possibly, though a little decent reticence as to introducing actual
+persons, and thus violating the sanctity of private life, might not be
+amiss. But plays, no. I say NO. Not plays. If you will not concede this
+point I cant continue our conversation. I take this seriously. It's a
+matter of principle. I must ask you, Miss O'Dowda, before we go a step
+further, Do you or do you not claim that these works are plays?
+
+FANNY. I assure you I dont.
+
+TROTTER. Not in any sense of the word?
+
+FANNY. Not in any sense of the word. I loathe plays.
+
+TROTTER. [disappointed] That last remark destroys all the value of your
+admission. You admire these--these theatrical nondescripts? You enjoy
+them?
+
+FANNY. Dont you?
+
+TROTTER. Of course I do. Do you take me for a fool? Do you suppose I
+prefer popular melodramas? Have I not written most appreciative notices
+of them? But I say theyre not plays. Theyre not plays. I cant consent to
+remain in this house another minute if anything remotely resembling them
+is to be foisted on me as a play.
+
+FANNY. I fully admit that theyre not plays. I only want you to tell my
+father that plays are not plays nowadays--not in your sense of the word.
+
+TROTTER. Ah, there you go again! In my sense of the word! You believe
+that my criticism is merely a personal impression; that--
+
+FANNY. You always said it was.
+
+TROTTER. Pardon me: not on this point. If you had been classically
+educated--
+
+FANNY. But I have.
+
+TROTTER. Pooh! Cambridge! If you had been educated at Oxford, you
+would know that the definition of a play has been settled exactly and
+scientifically for two thousand two hundred and sixty years. When I say
+that these entertainments are not plays, I dont mean in my sense of
+the word, but in the sense given to it for all time by the immortal
+Stagirite.
+
+FANNY. Who is the Stagirite?
+
+TROTTER. [shocked] You dont know who the Stagirite was?
+
+FANNY. Sorry. Never heard of him.
+
+TROTTER. And this is Cambridge education! Well, my dear young lady, I'm
+delighted to find theres something you don't know; and I shant spoil you
+by dispelling an ignorance which, in my opinion, is highly becoming to
+your age and sex. So we'll leave it at that.
+
+FANNY. But you will promise to tell my father that lots of people
+write plays just like this one--that I havnt selected it out of mere
+heartlessness?
+
+TROTTER. I cant possibly tell you what I shall say to your father about
+the play until Ive seen the play. But I'll tell you what I shall say to
+him about you. I shall say that youre a very foolish young lady; that
+youve got into a very questionable set; and that the sooner he takes you
+away from Cambridge and its Fabian Society, the better.
+
+FANNY. It's so funny to hear you pretending to be a heavy father. In
+Cambridge we regard you as a _bel esprit_, a wit, an Irresponsible, a
+Parisian Immoralist, _tres chic_.
+
+TROTTER. I!
+
+FANNY. Theres quite a Trotter set.
+
+TROTTER. Well, upon my word!
+
+FANNY. They go in for adventures and call you Aramis.
+
+TROTTER. They wouldnt dare!
+
+FANNY. You always make such delicious fun of the serious people. Your
+_insouciance_--
+
+TROTTER. [frantic] Stop talking French to me: it's not a proper language
+for a young girl. Great heavens! how is it possible that a few innocent
+pleasantries should be so frightfully misunderstood? Ive tried all my
+life to be sincere and simple, to be unassuming and kindly. Ive lived a
+blameless life. Ive supported the Censorship in the face of ridicule
+and insult. And now I'm told that I'm a centre of Immoralism! of Modern
+Minxism! a trifler with the most sacred subjects! a Nietzschean!!
+perhaps a Shavian!!!
+
+FANNY. Do you mean you are really on the serious side, Mr Trotter?
+
+TROTTER. Of course I'm on the serious side. How dare you ask me such a
+question?
+
+FANNY. Then why dont you play for it?
+
+TROTTER. I do play for it--short, of course, of making myself
+ridiculous.
+
+FANNY. What! not make yourself ridiculous for the sake of a good cause!
+Oh, Mr Trotter. Thats _vieux jeu_.
+
+TROTTER. [shouting at her] Dont talk French. I will not allow it.
+
+FANNY. But this dread of ridicule is so frightfully out of date. The
+Cambridge Fabian Society--
+
+TROTTER. I forbid you to mention the Fabian Society to me.
+
+FANNY. Its motto is "You cannot learn to skate without making yourself
+ridiculous."
+
+TROTTER. Skate! What has that to do with it?
+
+FANNY. Thats not all. It goes on, "The ice of life is slippery."
+
+TROTTER. Ice of life indeed! You should be eating penny ices and
+enjoying yourself. I wont hear another word.
+
+_The Count returns._
+
+THE COUNT. We're all waiting in the drawing-room, my dear. Have you been
+detaining Mr Trotter all this time?
+
+TROTTER. I'm so sorry. I must have just a little brush up: I [He hurries
+out].
+
+THE COUNT. My dear, you should be in the drawing-room. You should not
+have kept him here.
+
+FANNY. I know. Dont scold me: I had something important to say to him.
+
+THE COUNT. I shall ask him to take you in to dinner.
+
+FANNY. Yes, papa. Oh, I hope it will go off well.
+
+THE COUNT. Yes, love, of course it will. Come along.
+
+FANNY. Just one thing, papa, whilst we're alone. Who was the Stagirite?
+
+THE COUNT. The Stagirite? Do you mean to say you dont know?
+
+FANNY. Havnt the least notion.
+
+THE COUNT. The Stagirite was Aristotle. By the way, dont mention him to
+Mr Trotter.
+
+_They go to the dining-room._
+
+
+
+
+
+THE PLAY
+
+
+
+
+ACT I
+
+_In the dining-room of a house in Denmark Hill, an elderly lady sits at
+breakfast reading the newspaper. Her chair is at the end of the oblong
+dining-table furthest from the fire. There is an empty chair at the
+other end. The fireplace is behind this chair; and the door is next the
+fireplace, between it and the corner. An arm-chair stands beside the
+coal-scuttle. In the middle of the back wall is the sideboard, parallel
+to the table. The rest of the furniture is mostly dining-room chairs,
+ranged against the walls, and including a baby rocking-chair on the
+lady's side of the room. The lady is a placid person. Her husband, Mr
+Robin Gilbey, not at all placid, bursts violently into the room with a
+letter in his hand._
+
+GILBEY. [grinding his teeth] This is a nice thing. This is a b----
+
+MRS GILBEY. [cutting him short] Leave it at that, please. Whatever it
+is, bad language wont make it better.
+
+GILBEY. [bitterly] Yes, put me in the wrong as usual. Take your boy's
+part against me. [He flings himself into the empty chair opposite her].
+
+MRS GILBEY. When he does anything right, hes your son. When he does
+anything wrong hes mine. Have you any news of him?
+
+GILBEY. Ive a good mind not to tell you.
+
+MRS GILBEY. Then dont. I suppose hes been found. Thats a comfort, at all
+events.
+
+GILBEY. No, he hasnt been found. The boy may be at the bottom of the
+river for all you care. [Too agitated to sit quietly, he rises and paces
+the room distractedly].
+
+MRS GILBEY. Then what have you got in your hand?
+
+GILBEY. Ive a letter from the Monsignor Grenfell. From New York.
+Dropping us. Cutting us. [Turning fiercely on her] Thats a nice thing,
+isnt it?
+
+MRS GILBEY. What for?
+
+GILBEY. [flinging away towards his chair] How do _I_ know what for?
+
+MRS GILBEY. What does he say?
+
+GILBEY. [sitting down and grumblingly adjusting his spectacles] This is
+what he says. "My dear Mr Gilbey: The news about Bobby had to follow me
+across the Atlantic: it did not reach me until to-day. I am afraid he
+is incorrigible. My brother, as you may imagine, feels that this last
+escapade has gone beyond the bounds; and I think, myself, that Bobby
+ought to be made to feel that such scrapes involve a certain degree of
+reprobation." "As you may imagine"! And we know no more about it than
+the babe unborn.
+
+MRS GILBEY. What else does he say?
+
+GILBEY. "I think my brother must have been just a little to blame
+himself; so, between ourselves, I shall, with due and impressive
+formality, forgive Bobby later on; but for the present I think it had
+better be understood that he is in disgrace, and that we are no longer
+on visiting terms. As ever, yours sincerely." [His agitation masters him
+again] Thats a nice slap in the face to get from a man in his position!
+This is what your son has brought on me.
+
+MRS GILBEY. Well, I think it's rather a nice letter. He as good as tells
+you hes only letting on to be offended for Bobby's good.
+
+GILBEY. Oh, very well: have the letter framed and hang it up over the
+mantelpiece as a testimonial.
+
+MRS GILBEY. Dont talk nonsense, Rob. You ought to be thankful to know
+that the boy is alive after his disappearing like that for nearly a
+week.
+
+GILBEY. Nearly a week! A fortnight, you mean. Wheres your feelings,
+woman? It was fourteen days yesterday.
+
+MRS GILBEY. Oh, dont call it fourteen days, Rob, as if the boy was in
+prison.
+
+GILBEY. How do you know hes not in prison? It's got on my nerves so,
+that I'd believe even that.
+
+MRS GILBEY. Dont talk silly, Rob. Bobby might get into a scrape like any
+other lad; but he'd never do anything low.
+
+_Juggins, the footman, comes in with a card on a salver. He is a rather
+low-spirited man of thirty-five or more, of good appearance and address,
+and iron self-command._
+
+JUGGINS. [presenting the salver to Mr Gilbey] Lady wishes to see Mr
+Bobby's parents, sir.
+
+GILBEY. [pointing to Mrs Gilbey] Theres Mr Bobby's parent. I disown him.
+
+JUGGINS. Yes, sir. [He presents the salver to Mrs Gilbey].
+
+MRS GILBEY. You mustnt mind what your master says, Juggins: he doesnt
+mean it. [She takes the card and reads it]. Well, I never!
+
+GILBEY. Whats up now?
+
+MRS GILBEY. [reading] "Miss D. Delaney. Darling Dora." Just like
+that--in brackets. What sort of person, Juggins?
+
+GILBEY. Whats her address?
+
+MRS GILBEY. The West Circular Road. Is that a respectable address,
+Juggins?
+
+JUGGINS. A great many most respectable people live in the West Circular
+Road, madam; but the address is not a guarantee of respectability.
+
+GILBEY. So it's come to that with him, has it?
+
+MRS GILBEY. Dont jump to conclusions, Rob. How do you know? [To Juggins]
+Is she a lady, Juggins? You know what I mean.
+
+JUGGINS. In the sense in which you are using the word, no, madam.
+
+MRS GILBEY. I'd better try what I can get out of her. [To Juggins] Shew
+her up. You dont mind, do you, Rob?
+
+GILBEY. So long as you dont flounce out and leave me alone with her. [He
+rises and plants himself on the hearth-rug].
+
+_Juggins goes out._
+
+MRS GILBEY. I wonder what she wants, Rob?
+
+GILBEY. If she wants money, she shant have it. Not a farthing. A nice
+thing, everybody seeing her on our doorstep! If it wasnt that she may
+tell us something about the lad, I'd have Juggins put the hussy into the
+street.
+
+JUGGINS. [returning and announcing] Miss Delaney. [He waits for express
+orders before placing a chair for this visitor].
+
+_Miss Delaney comes in. She is a young lady of hilarious disposition,
+very tolerable good looks, and killing clothes. She is so affable and
+confidential that it is very difficult to keep her at a distance by any
+process short of flinging her out of the house._
+
+DORA. [plunging at once into privileged intimacy and into the middle
+of the room] How d'ye do, both. I'm a friend of Bobby's. He told me all
+about you once, in a moment of confidence. Of course he never let on who
+he was at the police court.
+
+GILBEY. Police court!
+
+MRS GILBEY. [looking apprehensively at Juggins] Tch--! Juggins: a chair.
+
+DORA. Oh, Ive let it out, have I! [Contemplating Juggins approvingly as
+he places a chair for her between the table and the sideboard] But
+hes the right sort: I can see that. [Buttonholing him] You wont let on
+downstairs, old man, will you?
+
+JUGGINS. The family can rely on my absolute discretion. [He withdraws].
+
+DORA. [sitting down genteelly] I dont know what youll say to me: you
+know I really have no right to come here; but then what was I to do? You
+know Holy Joe, Bobby's tutor, dont you? But of course you do.
+
+GILBEY. [with dignity] I know Mr Joseph Grenfell, the brother of
+Monsignor Grenfell, if it is of him you are speaking.
+
+DORA. [wide-eyed and much amused] No!!! You dont tell me that old geezer
+has a brother a Monsignor! And youre Catholics! And I never knew it,
+though Ive known Bobby ever so long! But of course the last thing you
+find out about a person is their religion, isnt it?
+
+MRS GILBEY. We're not Catholics. But when the Samuelses got an
+Archdeacon's son to form their boy's mind, Mr Gilbey thought Bobby
+ought to have a chance too. And the Monsignor is a customer. Mr Gilbey
+consulted him about Bobby; and he recommended a brother of his that was
+more sinned against than sinning.
+
+GILBEY. [on tenderhooks] She dont want to hear about that, Maria. [To
+Dora] Whats your business?
+
+DORA. I'm afraid it was all my fault.
+
+GILBEY. What was all your fault? I'm half distracted. I dont know what
+has happened to the boy: hes been lost these fourteen days--
+
+MRS GILBEY. A fortnight, Rob.
+
+GILBEY. --and not a word have we heard of him since.
+
+MRS GILBEY. Dont fuss, Rob.
+
+GILBEY. [yelling] I will fuss. Youve no feeling. You dont care what
+becomes of the lad. [He sits down savagely].
+
+DORA. [soothingly] Youve been anxious about him. Of course. How
+thoughtless of me not to begin by telling you hes quite safe. Indeed hes
+in the safest place in the world, as one may say: safe under lock and
+key.
+
+GILBEY. [horrified, pitiable] Oh my-- [his breath fails him]. Do you
+mean that when he was in the police court he was in the dock? Oh, Maria!
+Oh, great Lord! What has he done? What has he got for it? [Desperate]
+Will you tell me or will you see me go mad on my own carpet?
+
+DORA. [sweetly] Yes, old dear--
+
+MRS GILBEY. [starting at the familiarity] Well!
+
+DORA. [continuing] I'll tell you: but dont you worry: hes all right. I
+came out myself this morning: there was such a crowd! and a band! they
+thought I was a suffragette: only fancy! You see it was like this. Holy
+Joe got talking about how he'd been a champion sprinter at college.
+
+MRS GILBEY. A what?
+
+DORA. A sprinter. He said he was the fastest hundred yards runner in
+England. We were all in the old cowshed that night.
+
+MRS GILBEY. What old cowshed?
+
+GILBEY. [groaning] Oh, get on. Get on.
+
+DORA. Oh, of course you wouldnt know. How silly of me! It's a rather
+go-ahead sort of music hall in Stepney. We call it the old cowshed.
+
+MRS GILBEY. Does Mr Grenfell take Bobby to music halls?
+
+DORA. No. Bobby takes him. But Holy Joe likes it: fairly laps it up like
+a kitten, poor old dear. Well, Bobby says to me, "Darling--"
+
+MRS GILBEY. [placidly] Why does he call you Darling?
+
+DORA. Oh, everybody calls me Darling: it's a sort of name Ive got.
+Darling Dora, you know. Well, he says, "Darling, if you can get Holy Joe
+to sprint a hundred yards, I'll stand you that squiffer with the gold
+keys."
+
+MRS GILBEY. Does he call his tutor Holy Joe to his face [Gilbey clutches
+at his hair in his impatience].
+
+DORA. Well, what would he call him? After all, Holy Joe is Holy Joe; and
+boys will be boys.
+
+MRS GILBEY. Whats a squiffer?
+
+DORA. Oh, of course: excuse my vulgarity: a concertina. Theres one in
+a shop in Green Street, ivory inlaid, with gold keys and Russia leather
+bellows; and Bobby knew I hankered after it; but he couldnt afford it,
+poor lad, though I knew he just longed to give it to me.
+
+GILBEY. Maria: if you keep interrupting with silly questions, I shall go
+out of my senses. Heres the boy in gaol and me disgraced for ever; and
+all you care to know is what a squiffer is.
+
+DORA. Well, remember it has gold keys. The man wouldnt take a penny less
+than 15 pounds for it. It was a presentation one.
+
+GILBEY. [shouting at her] Wheres my son? Whats happened to my son? Will
+you tell me that, and stop cackling about your squiffer?
+
+DORA. Oh, aint we impatient! Well, it does you credit, old dear. And you
+neednt fuss: theres no disgrace. Bobby behaved like a perfect gentleman.
+Besides, it was all my fault. I'll own it: I took too much champagne. I
+was not what you might call drunk; but I was bright, and a little beyond
+myself; and--I'll confess it--I wanted to shew off before Bobby, because
+he was a bit taken by a woman on the stage; and she was pretending to be
+game for anything. You see youve brought Bobby up too strict; and when
+he gets loose theres no holding him. He does enjoy life more than any
+lad I ever met.
+
+GILBEY. Never you mind how hes been brought up: thats my business. Tell
+me how hes been brought down: thats yours.
+
+MRS GILBEY. Oh, dont be rude to the lady, Rob.
+
+DORA. I'm coming to it, old dear: dont you be so headstrong. Well, it
+was a beautiful moonlight night; and we couldnt get a cab on the nod; so
+we started to walk, very jolly, you know: arm in arm, and dancing along,
+singing and all that. When we came into Jamaica Square, there was a
+young copper on point duty at the corner. I says to Bob: "Dearie boy: is
+it a bargain about the squiffer if I make Joe sprint for you?" "Anything
+you like, darling," says he: "I love you." I put on my best company
+manners and stepped up to the copper. "If you please, sir," says I, "can
+you direct me to Carrickmines Square?" I was so genteel, and talked so
+sweet, that he fell to it like a bird. "I never heard of any such Square
+in these parts," he says. "Then," says I, "what a very silly little
+officer you must be!"; and I gave his helmet a chuck behind that knocked
+it over his eyes, and did a bunk.
+
+MRS GILBEY. Did a what?
+
+DORA. A bunk. Holy Joe did one too all right: he sprinted faster than he
+ever did in college, I bet, the old dear. He got clean off, too. Just as
+he was overtaking me half-way down the square, we heard the whistle; and
+at the sound of it he drew away like a streak of lightning; and that
+was the last I saw of him. I was copped in the Dock Road myself: rotten
+luck, wasn't it? I tried the innocent and genteel and all the rest; but
+Bobby's hat done me in.
+
+GILBEY. And what happened to the boy?
+
+DORA. Only fancy! he stopped to laugh at the copper! He thought the
+copper would see the joke, poor lamb. He was arguing about it when the
+two that took me came along to find out what the whistle was for, and
+brought me with them. Of course I swore I'd never seen him before in
+my life; but there he was in my hat and I in his. The cops were very
+spiteful and laid it on for all they were worth: drunk and disorderly
+and assaulting the police and all that. I got fourteen days without the
+option, because you see--well, the fact is, I'd done it before, and been
+warned. Bobby was a first offender and had the option; but the dear boy
+had no money left and wouldnt give you away by telling his name; and
+anyhow he couldnt have brought himself to buy himself off and leave me
+there; so hes doing his time. Well, it was two forty shillingses; and
+Ive only twenty-eight shillings in the world. If I pawn my clothes I
+shant be able to earn any more. So I cant pay the fine and get him out;
+but if youll stand 3 pounds I'll stand one; and thatll do it. If youd
+like to be very kind and nice you could pay the lot; but I cant deny
+that it was my fault; so I wont press you.
+
+GILBEY. [heart-broken] My son in gaol!
+
+DORA. Oh, cheer up, old dear: it wont hurt him: look at me after
+fourteen days of it; I'm all the better for being kept a bit quiet. You
+mustnt let it prey on your mind.
+
+GILBEY. The disgrace of it will kill me. And it will leave a mark on him
+to the end of his life.
+
+DORA. Not a bit of it. Dont you be afraid: Ive educated Bobby a bit: hes
+not the mollycoddle he was when you had him in hand.
+
+MRS GILBEY. Indeed Bobby is not a mollycoddle. They wanted him to go
+in for singlestick at the Young Men's Christian Association; but, of
+course, I couldnt allow that: he might have had his eye knocked out.
+
+GILBEY. [to Dora, angrily] Listen here, you.
+
+DORA. Oh, aint we cross!
+
+GILBEY. I want none of your gaiety here. This is a respectable
+household. Youve gone and got my poor innocent boy into trouble. It's
+the like of you thats the ruin of the like of him.
+
+DORA. So you always say, you old dears. But you know better. Bobby came
+to me: I didnt come to him.
+
+GILBEY. Would he have gone if you hadnt been there for him to go to?
+Tell me that. You know why he went to you, I suppose?
+
+DORA. [charitably] It was dull for him at home, poor lad, wasnt it?
+
+MRS GILBEY. Oh no. I'm at home on first Thursdays. And we have the
+Knoxes to dinner every Friday. Margaret Knox and Bobby are as good as
+engaged. Mr Knox is my husband's partner. Mrs Knox is very religious;
+but shes quite cheerful. We dine with them on Tuesdays. So thats two
+evenings pleasure every week.
+
+GILBEY. [almost in tears] We done what we could for the boy. Short of
+letting him go into temptations of all sorts, he can do what he likes.
+What more does he want?
+
+DORA. Well, old dear, he wants me; and thats about the long and short of
+it. And I must say youre not very nice to me about it. Ive talked to him
+like a mother, and tried my best to keep him straight; but I dont deny
+I like a bit of fun myself; and we both get a bit giddy when we're
+lighthearted. Him and me is a pair, I'm afraid.
+
+GILBEY. Dont talk foolishness, girl. How could you and he be a pair, you
+being what you are, and he brought up as he has been, with the example
+of a religious woman like Mrs Knox before his eyes? I cant understand
+how he could bring himself to be seen in the street with you. [Pitying
+himself] I havnt deserved this. Ive done my duty as a father. Ive kept
+him sheltered. [Angry with her] Creatures like you that take advantage
+of a child's innocence ought to be whipped through the streets.
+
+DORA. Well, whatever I may be, I'm too much the lady to lose my temper;
+and I dont think Bobby would like me to tell you what I think of you;
+for when I start giving people a bit of my mind I sometimes use language
+thats beneath me. But I tell you once for all I must have the money to
+get Bobby out; and if you wont fork out, I'll hunt up Holy Joe. He might
+get it off his brother, the Monsignor.
+
+GILBEY. You mind your own concerns. My solicitor will do what is right.
+I'll not have you paying my son's fine as if you were anything to him.
+
+DORA. Thats right. Youll get him out today, wont you?
+
+GILBEY. It's likely I'd leave my boy in prison, isnt it?
+
+DORA. I'd like to know when theyll let him out.
+
+GILBEY. You would, would you? Youre going to meet him at the prison
+door.
+
+DORA. Well, dont you think any woman would that had the feelings of a
+lady?
+
+GILBEY. [bitterly] Oh yes: I know. Here! I must buy the lad's salvation,
+I suppose. How much will you take to clear out and let him go?
+
+DORA. [pitying him: quite nice about it] What good would that do, old
+dear? There are others, you know.
+
+GILBEY. Thats true. I must send the boy himself away.
+
+DORA. Where to?
+
+GILBEY. Anywhere, so long as hes out of the reach of you and your like.
+
+DORA. Then I'm afraid youll have to send him out of the world, old dear.
+I'm sorry for you: I really am, though you mightnt believe it; and I
+think your feelings do you real credit. But I cant give him up just to
+let him fall into the hands of people I couldnt trust, can I?
+
+GILBEY. [beside himself, rising] Wheres the police? Wheres the
+Government? Wheres the Church? Wheres respectability and right reason?
+Whats the good of them if I have to stand here and see you put my son in
+your pocket as if he was a chattel slave, and you hardly out of gaol as
+a common drunk and disorderly? Whats the world coming to?
+
+DORA. It is a lottery, isnt it, old dear?
+
+_Mr Gilbey rushes from the room, distracted._
+
+MRS GILBEY. [unruffled] Where did you buy that white lace? I want some
+to match a collaret of my own; and I cant get it at Perry and John's.
+
+DORA. Knagg and Pantle's: one and fourpence. It's machine hand-made.
+
+MRS GILBEY. I never give more than one and tuppence. But I suppose youre
+extravagant by nature. My sister Martha was just like that. Pay anything
+she was asked.
+
+DORA. Whats tuppence to you, Mrs Bobby, after all?
+
+MRS GILBEY. [correcting her] Mrs Gilbey.
+
+DORA. Of course, Mrs Gilbey. I am silly.
+
+MRS GILBEY. Bobby must have looked funny in your hat. Why did you change
+hats with him?
+
+DORA. I dont know. One does, you know.
+
+MRS GILBEY. I never did. The things people do! I cant understand them.
+Bobby never told me he was keeping company with you. His own mother!
+
+DORA. [overcome] Excuse me: I cant help smiling.
+
+_Juggins enters._
+
+JUGGINS. Mr Gilbey has gone to Wormwood Scrubbs, madam.
+
+MRS GILBEY. Have you ever been in a police court, Juggins?
+
+JUGGINS. Yes, madam.
+
+MRS GILBEY [rather shocked] I hope you had not been exceeding, Juggins.
+
+JUGGINS. Yes, madam, I had. I exceeded the legal limit.
+
+MRS GILBEY. Oh, that! Why do they give a woman a fortnight for wearing a
+man's hat, and a man a month for wearing hers?
+
+JUGGINS. I didnt know that they did, madam.
+
+MRS GILBEY. It doesnt seem justice, does it, Juggins?
+
+JUGGINS. No, madam.
+
+MRS GILBEY [to Dora, rising] Well, good-bye. [Shaking her hand] So
+pleased to have made your acquaintance.
+
+DORA. [standing up] Dont mention it. I'm sure it's most kind of you to
+receive me at all.
+
+MRS GILBEY. I must go off now and order lunch. [She trots to the door].
+What was it you called the concertina?
+
+DORA. A squiffer, dear.
+
+MRS GILBEY. [thoughtfully] A squiffer, of course. How funny! [She goes
+out].
+
+DORA. [exploding into ecstasies of mirth] Oh my! isnt she an old love?
+How do you keep your face straight?
+
+JUGGINS. It is what I am paid for.
+
+DORA. [confidentially] Listen here, dear boy. Your name isnt Juggins.
+Nobody's name is Juggins.
+
+JUGGINS. My orders are, Miss Delaney, that you are not to be here when
+Mr Gilbey returns from Wormwood Scrubbs.
+
+DORA. That means telling me to mind my own business, doesnt it? Well,
+I'm off. Tootle Loo, Charlie Darling. [She kisses her hand to him and
+goes].
+
+
+
+
+ACT II
+
+_On the afternoon of the same day, Mrs Knox is writing notes in her
+drawing-room, at a writing-table which stands against the wall. Anyone
+placed so as to see Mrs Knox's left profile, will have the door on the
+right and the window an the left, both further away than Mrs Knox, whose
+back is presented to an obsolete upright piano at the opposite side
+of the room. The sofa is near the piano. There is a small table in the
+middle of the room, with some gilt-edged books and albums on it, and
+chairs near it._
+
+_Mr Knox comes in almost furtively, a troubled man of fifty, thinner,
+harder, and uglier than his partner, Gilbey, Gilbey being a soft
+stoutish man with white hair and thin smooth skin, whilst Knox has
+coarse black hair, and blue jaws which no diligence in shaving can
+whiten. Mrs Knox is a plain woman, dressed without regard to fashion,
+with thoughtful eyes and thoughtful ways that make an atmosphere of
+peace and some solemnity. She is surprised to see her husband at home
+during business hours._
+
+MRS KNOX. What brings you home at this hour? Have you heard anything?
+
+KNOX. No. Have you?
+
+MRS KNOX. No. Whats the matter?
+
+KNOX. [sitting down on the sofa] I believe Gilbey has found out.
+
+MRS KNOX. What makes you think that?
+
+KNOX. Well, I dont know: I didnt like to tell you: you have enough
+to worry you without that; but Gilbey's been very queer ever since
+it happened. I cant keep my mind on business as I ought; and I was
+depending on him. But hes worse than me. Hes not looking after anything;
+and he keeps out of my way. His manner's not natural. He hasnt asked us
+to dinner; and hes never said a word about our not asking him to
+dinner, after all these years when weve dined every week as regular as
+clockwork. It looks to me as if Gilbey's trying to drop me socially.
+Well, why should he do that if he hasnt heard?
+
+MRS KNOX. I wonder! Bobby hasnt been near us either: thats what I cant
+make out.
+
+KNOX. Oh, thats nothing. I told him Margaret was down in Cornwall with
+her aunt.
+
+MRS KNOX. [reproachfully] Jo! [She takes her handkerchief from the
+writing-table and cries a little].
+
+KNOX. Well, I got to tell lies, aint I? You wont. Somebody's got to tell
+em.
+
+MRS KNOX. [putting away her handkerchief] It only ends in our not
+knowing what to believe. Mrs Gilbey told me Bobby was in Brighton for
+the sea air. Theres something queer about that. Gilbey would never
+let the boy loose by himself among the temptations of a gay place like
+Brighton without his tutor; and I saw the tutor in Kensington High
+Street the very day she told me.
+
+KNOX. If the Gilbeys have found out, it's all over between Bobby and
+Margaret, and all over between us and them.
+
+MRS KNOX. It's all over between us and everybody. When a girl runs away
+from home like that, people know what to think of her and her parents.
+
+KNOX. She had a happy, respectable home--everything--
+
+MRS KNOX. [interrupting him] Theres no use going over it all again, Jo.
+If a girl hasnt happiness in herself, she wont be happy anywhere. Youd
+better go back to the shop and try to keep your mind off it.
+
+KNOX. [rising restlessly] I cant. I keep fancying everybody knows it and
+is sniggering about it. I'm at peace nowhere but here. It's a comfort to
+be with you. It's a torment to be with other people.
+
+MRS KNOX. [going to him and drawing her arm through his] There, Jo,
+there! I'm sure I'd have you here always if I could. But it cant be.
+God's work must go on from day to day, no matter what comes. We must
+face our trouble and bear it.
+
+KNOX. [wandering to the window arm in arm with her] Just look at the
+people in the street, going up and down as if nothing had happened. It
+seems unnatural, as if they all knew and didnt care.
+
+MRS KNOX. If they knew, Jo, thered be a crowd round the house looking up
+at us. You shouldnt keep thinking about it.
+
+KNOX. I know I shouldnt. You have your religion, Amelia; and I'm sure
+I'm glad it comforts you. But it doesnt come to me that way. Ive worked
+hard to get a position and be respectable. Ive turned many a girl out of
+the shop for being half an hour late at night; and heres my own daughter
+gone for a fortnight without word or sign, except a telegram to say shes
+not dead and that we're not to worry about her.
+
+MRS KNOX. [suddenly pointing to the street] Jo, look!
+
+KNOX. Margaret! With a man!
+
+MRS KNOX. Run down, Jo, quick. Catch her: save her.
+
+KNOX. [lingering] Shes shaking bands with him: shes coming across to the
+door.
+
+MRS KNOX. [energetically] Do as I tell you. Catch the man before hes out
+of sight.
+
+_Knox rushes from the room. Mrs Knox looks anxiously and excitedly from
+the window. Then she throws up the sash and leans out. Margaret Knox
+comes in, flustered and annoyed. She is a strong, springy girl of
+eighteen, with large nostrils, an audacious chin, and a gaily resolute
+manner, even peremptory on occasions like the present, when she is
+annoyed._
+
+MARGARET. Mother. Mother.
+
+_Mrs Knox draws in her head and confronts her daughter._
+
+MRS KNOX. [sternly] Well, miss?
+
+MARGARET. Oh, mother, do go out and stop father making a scene in
+the street. He rushed at him and said "Youre the man who took away my
+daughter" loud enough for all the people to hear. Everybody stopped. We
+shall have a crowd round the house. Do do something to stop him.
+
+_Knox returns with a good-looking young marine officer._
+
+MARGARET. Oh, Monsieur Duvallet, I'm so sorry--so ashamed. Mother:
+this is Monsieur Duvallet, who has been extremely kind to me. Monsieur
+Duvallet: my mother. [Duvallet bows].
+
+KNOX. A Frenchman! It only needed this.
+
+MARGARET. [much annoyed] Father: do please be commonly civil to a
+gentleman who has been of the greatest service to me. What will he think
+of us?
+
+DUVALLET. [debonair] But it's very natural. I understand Mr Knox's
+feelings perfectly. [He speaks English better than Knox, having learnt
+it on both sides of the Atlantic].
+
+KNOX. If Ive made any mistake I'm ready to apologize. But I want to know
+where my daughter has been for the last fortnight.
+
+DUVALLET. She has been, I assure you, in a particularly safe place.
+
+KNOX. Will you tell me what place? I can judge for myself how safe it
+was.
+
+MARGARET. Holloway Gaol. Was that safe enough?
+
+KNOX AND MRS KNOX. Holloway Gaol!
+
+KNOX. Youve joined the Suffragets!
+
+MARGARET. No. I wish I had. I could have had the same experience in
+better company. Please sit down, Monsieur Duvallet. [She sits between
+the table and the sofa. Mrs Knox, overwhelmed, sits at the other side of
+the table. Knox remains standing in the middle of the room].
+
+DUVALLET. [sitting down on the sofa] It was nothing. An adventure.
+Nothing.
+
+MARGARET. [obdurately] Drunk and assaulting the police! Forty shillings
+or a month!
+
+MRS KNOX. Margaret! Who accused you of such a thing?
+
+MARGARET. The policeman I assaulted.
+
+KNOX. You mean to say that you did it!
+
+MARGARET. I did. I had that satisfaction at all events. I knocked two of
+his teeth out.
+
+KNOX. And you sit there coolly and tell me this!
+
+MARGARET. Well, where do you want me to sit? Whats the use of saying
+things like that?
+
+KNOX. My daughter in Holloway Gaol!
+
+MARGARET. All the women in Holloway are somebody's daughters. Really,
+father, you must make up your mind to it. If you had sat in that cell
+for fourteen days making up your mind to it, you would understand that
+I'm not in the humor to be gaped at while youre trying to persuade
+yourself that it cant be real. These things really do happen to real
+people every day; and you read about them in the papers and think it's
+all right. Well, theyve happened to me: thats all.
+
+KNOX. [feeble-forcible] But they shouldnt have happened to you. Dont you
+know that?
+
+MARGARET. They shouldnt happen to anybody, I suppose. But they do.
+[Rising impatiently] And really I'd rather go out and assault another
+policeman and go back to Holloway than keep talking round and round it
+like this. If youre going to turn me out of the house, turn me out: the
+sooner I go the better.
+
+DUVALLET. [rising quickly] That is impossible, mademoiselle. Your father
+has his position to consider. To turn his daughter out of doors would
+ruin him socially.
+
+KNOX. Oh, youve put her up to that, have you? And where did you come in,
+may I ask?
+
+DUVALLET. I came in at your invitation--at your amiable insistence, in
+fact, not at my own. But you need have no anxiety on my account. I
+was concerned in the regrettable incident which led to your daughter's
+incarceration. I got a fortnight without the option of a fine on the
+ridiculous ground that I ought to have struck the policeman with my
+fist. I should have done so with pleasure had I known; but, as it was,
+I struck him on the ear with my boot--a magnificent _moulinet_, I must
+say--and was informed that I had been guilty of an act of cowardice,
+but that for the sake of the _entente cordiale_ I should be dealt with
+leniently. Yet Miss Knox, who used her fist, got a month, but with the
+option of a fine. I did not know this until I was released, when my
+first act was to pay the fine. And here we are.
+
+MRS KNOX. You ought to pay the gentleman the fine, Jo.
+
+KNOX. [reddening] Oh, certainly. [He takes out some money].
+
+DUVALLET. Oh please! it does not matter. [Knox hands him two
+sovereigns]. If you insist-- [he pockets them] Thank you.
+
+MARGARET. I'm ever so much obliged to you, Monsieur Duvallet.
+
+DUVALLET. Can I be of any further assistance, mademoiselle?
+
+MARGARET. I think you had better leave us to fight it out, if you dont
+mind.
+
+DUVALLET. Perfectly. Madame [bow]--Mademoiselle [bow]--Monsieur
+[bow]--[He goes out].
+
+MRS KNOX. Dont ring, Jo. See the gentleman out yourself.
+
+_Knox hastily sees Duvallet out. Mother and daughter sit looking
+forlornly at one another without saying a word. Mrs Knox slowly sits
+down. Margaret follows her example. They look at one another again. Mr
+Knox returns._
+
+KNOX. [shortly and sternly] Amelia: this is your job. [To Margaret] I
+leave you to your mother. I shall have my own say in the matter when I
+hear what you have to say to her. [He goes out, solemn and offended].
+
+MARGARET. [with a bitter little laugh] Just what the Suffraget said to
+me in Holloway. He throws the job on you.
+
+MRS KNOX. [reproachfully] Margaret!
+
+MARGARET. You know it's true.
+
+MRS KNOX. Margaret: if youre going to be hardened about it, theres no
+use my saying anything.
+
+MARGARET. I'm not hardened, mother. But I cant talk nonsense about
+it. You see, it's all real to me. Ive suffered it. Ive been shoved and
+bullied. Ive had my arms twisted. Ive been made scream with pain in
+other ways. Ive been flung into a filthy cell with a lot of other poor
+wretches as if I were a sack of coals being emptied into a cellar. And
+the only difference between me and the others was that I hit back. Yes
+I did. And I did worse. I wasnt ladylike. I cursed. I called names. I
+heard words that I didnt even know that I knew, coming out of my mouth
+just as if somebody else had spoken them. The policeman repeated them
+in court. The magistrate said he could hardly believe it. The policeman
+held out his hand with his two teeth in it that I knocked out. I said
+it was all right; that I had heard myself using those words quite
+distinctly; and that I had taken the good conduct prize for three years
+running at school. The poor old gentleman put me back for the missionary
+to find out who I was, and to ascertain the state of my mind. I wouldnt
+tell, of course, for your sakes at home here; and I wouldnt say I was
+sorry, or apologize to the policeman, or compensate him or anything of
+that sort. I wasnt sorry. The one thing that gave me any satisfaction
+was getting in that smack on his mouth; and I said so. So the missionary
+reported that I seemed hardened and that no doubt I would tell who I was
+after a day in prison. Then I was sentenced. So now you see I'm not a
+bit the sort of girl you thought me. I'm not a bit the sort of girl I
+thought myself. And I dont know what sort of person you really are, or
+what sort of person father really is. I wonder what he would say or do
+if he had an angry brute of a policeman twisting his arm with one hand
+and rushing him along by the nape of his neck with the other. He couldnt
+whirl his leg like a windmill and knock a policeman down by a glorious
+kick on the helmet. Oh, if theyd all fought as we two fought we'd have
+beaten them.
+
+MRS KNOX. But how did it all begin?
+
+MARGARET. Oh, I dont know. It was boat-race night, they said.
+
+MRS KNOX. Boat-race night! But what had you to do with the boat race?
+You went to the great Salvation Festival at the Albert Hall with your
+aunt. She put you into the bus that passes the door. What made you get
+out of the bus?
+
+MARGARET. I dont know. The meeting got on my nerves, somehow. It was the
+singing, I suppose: you know I love singing a good swinging hymn; and I
+felt it was ridiculous to go home in the bus after we had been singing
+so wonderfully about climbing up the golden stairs to heaven. I wanted
+more music--more happiness--more life. I wanted some comrade who felt
+as I did. I felt exalted: it seemed mean to be afraid of anything:
+after all, what could anyone do to me against my will? I suppose I was
+a little mad: at all events, I got out of the bus at Piccadilly Circus,
+because there was a lot of light and excitement there. I walked to
+Leicester Square; and went into a great theatre.
+
+MRS KNOX. [horrified] A theatre!
+
+MARGARET. Yes. Lots of other women were going in alone. I had to pay
+five shillings.
+
+MRS KNOX. [aghast] Five shillings!
+
+MARGARET. [apologetically] It was a lot. It was very stuffy; and I didnt
+like the people much, because they didnt seem to be enjoying themselves;
+but the stage was splendid and the music lovely. I saw that Frenchman,
+Monsieur Duvallet, standing against a barrier, smoking a cigarette. He
+seemed quite happy; and he was nice and sailorlike. I went and stood
+beside him, hoping he would speak to me.
+
+MRS KNOX. [gasps] Margaret!
+
+MARGARET. [continuing] He did, just as if he had known me for years.
+We got on together like old friends. He asked me would I have some
+champagne; and I said it would cost too much, but that I would give
+anything for a dance. I longed to join the people on the stage and dance
+with them: one of them was the most beautiful dancer I ever saw. He told
+me he had come there to see her, and that when it was over we could go
+somewhere where there was dancing. So we went to a place where there was
+a band in a gallery and the floor cleared for dancing. Very few people
+danced: the women only wanted to shew off their dresses; but we danced
+and danced until a lot of them joined in. We got quite reckless; and we
+had champagne after all. I never enjoyed anything so much. But at last
+it got spoilt by the Oxford and Cambridge students up for the boat race.
+They got drunk; and they began to smash things; and the police came in.
+Then it was quite horrible. The students fought with the police; and
+the police suddenly got quite brutal, and began to throw everybody
+downstairs. They attacked the women, who were not doing anything, and
+treated them just as roughly as they had treated the students. Duvallet
+got indignant and remonstrated with a policeman, who was shoving a woman
+though she was going quietly as fast as she could. The policeman flung
+the woman through the door and then turned on Duvallet. It was then that
+Duvallet swung his leg like a windmill and knocked the policeman down.
+And then three policemen rushed at him and carried him out by the arms
+and legs face downwards. Two more attacked me and gave me a shove to the
+door. That quite maddened me. I just got in one good bang on the mouth
+of one of them. All the rest was dreadful. I was rushed through the
+streets to the police station. They kicked me with their knees; they
+twisted my arms; they taunted and insulted me; they called me vile
+names; and I told them what I thought of them, and provoked them to do
+their worst. Theres one good thing about being hard hurt: it makes you
+sleep. I slept in that filthy cell with all the other drunks sounder
+than I should have slept at home. I cant describe how I felt next
+morning: it was hideous; but the police were quite jolly; and everybody
+said it was a bit of English fun, and talked about last year's boat-race
+night when it had been a great deal worse. I was black and blue and sick
+and wretched. But the strange thing was that I wasnt sorry; and I'm not
+sorry. And I dont feel that I did anything wrong, really. [She rises
+and stretches her arms with a large liberating breath] Now that it's all
+over I'm rather proud of it; though I know now that I'm not a lady; but
+whether thats because we're only shopkeepers, or because nobody's really
+a lady except when theyre treated like ladies, I dont know. [She throws
+herself into a corner of the sofa].
+
+MRS KNOX. [lost in wonder] But how could you bring yourself to do it,
+Margaret? I'm not blaming you: I only want to know. How could you bring
+yourself to do it?
+
+MARGARET. I cant tell you. I dont understand it myself. The prayer
+meeting set me free, somehow. I should never have done it if it were not
+for the prayer meeting.
+
+MRS KNOX. [deeply horrified] Oh, dont say such a thing as that. I know
+that prayer can set us free; though you could never understand me when I
+told you so; but it sets us free for good, not for evil.
+
+MARGARET. Then I suppose what I did was not evil; or else I was set free
+for evil as well as good. As father says, you cant have anything both
+ways at once. When I was at home and at school I was what you call good;
+but I wasnt free. And when I got free I was what most people would call
+not good. But I see no harm in what I did; though I see plenty in what
+other people did to me.
+
+MRS KNOX. I hope you dont think yourself a heroine of romance.
+
+MARGARET. Oh no. [She sits down again at the table]. I'm a heroine of
+reality, if you can call me a heroine at all. And reality is pretty
+brutal, pretty filthy, when you come to grips with it. Yet it's glorious
+all the same. It's so real and satisfactory.
+
+MRS KNOX. I dont like this spirit in you, Margaret. I dont like your
+talking to me in that tone.
+
+MARGARET. It's no use, mother. I dont care for you and Papa any the
+less; but I shall never get back to the old way of talking again. Ive
+made a sort of descent into hell--
+
+MRS KNOX. Margaret! Such a word!
+
+MARGARET. You should have heard all the words that were flying round
+that night. You should mix a little with people who dont know any
+other words. But when I said that about a descent into hell I was not
+swearing. I was in earnest, like a preacher.
+
+MRS KNOX. A preacher utters them in a reverent tone of voice.
+
+MARGARET. I know: the tone that shews they dont mean anything real to
+him. They usent to mean anything real to me. Now hell is as real to me
+as a turnip; and I suppose I shall always speak of it like that. Anyhow,
+Ive been there; and it seems to me now that nothing is worth doing but
+redeeming people from it.
+
+MRS KNOX. They are redeemed already if they choose to believe it.
+
+MARGARET. Whats the use of that if they dont choose to believe it? You
+dont believe it yourself, or you wouldnt pay policemen to twist their
+arms. Whats the good of pretending? Thats all our respectability is,
+pretending, pretending, pretending. Thank heaven Ive had it knocked out
+of me once for all!
+
+MRS KNOX. [greatly agitated] Margaret: dont talk like that. I cant bear
+to hear you talking wickedly. I can bear to hear the children of this
+world talking vainly and foolishly in the language of this world. But
+when I hear you justifying your wickedness in the words of grace, it's
+too horrible: it sounds like the devil making fun of religion. Ive tried
+to bring you up to learn the happiness of religion. Ive waited for you
+to find out that happiness is within ourselves and doesnt come from
+outward pleasures. Ive prayed oftener than you think that you might be
+enlightened. But if all my hopes and all my prayers are to come to this,
+that you mix up my very words and thoughts with the promptings of the
+devil, then I dont know what I shall do: I dont indeed: itll kill me.
+
+MARGARET. You shouldnt have prayed for me to be enlightened if you didnt
+want me to be enlightened. If the truth were known, I suspect we all
+want our prayers to be answered only by halves: the agreeable halves.
+Your prayer didnt get answered by halves, mother. Youve got more than
+you bargained for in the way of enlightenment. I shall never be the same
+again. I shall never speak in the old way again. Ive been set free from
+this silly little hole of a house and all its pretences. I know now that
+I am stronger than you and Papa. I havnt found that happiness of yours
+that is within yourself; but Ive found strength. For good or evil I am
+set free; and none of the things that used to hold me can hold me now.
+
+_Knox comes back, unable to bear his suspense._
+
+KNOX. How long more are you going to keep me waiting, Amelia? Do you
+think I'm made of iron? Whats the girl done? What are we going to do?
+
+MRS KNOX. Shes beyond my control, Jo, and beyond yours. I cant even pray
+for her now; for I dont know rightly what to pray for.
+
+KNOX. Dont talk nonsense, woman: is this a time for praying? Does
+anybody know? Thats what we have to consider now. If only we can keep it
+dark, I don't care for anything else.
+
+MARGARET. Dont hope for that, father. Mind: I'll tell everybody. It
+ought to be told. It must be told.
+
+KNOX. Hold your tongue, you young hussy; or go out of my house this
+instant.
+
+MARGARET. I'm quite ready. [She takes her hat and turns to the door].
+
+KNOX. [throwing himself in front of it] Here! where are you going?
+
+MRS KNOX. [rising] You mustnt turn her out, Jo! I'll go with her if she
+goes.
+
+KNOX. Who wants to turn her out? But is she going to ruin us? To let
+everybody know of her disgrace and shame? To tear me down from the
+position Ive made for myself and you by forty years hard struggling?
+
+MARGARET. Yes: I'm going to tear it all down. It stands between us and
+everything. I'll tell everybody.
+
+KNOX. Magsy, my child: dont bring down your father's hairs with sorrow
+to the grave. Theres only one thing I care about in the world: to keep
+this dark. I'm your father. I ask you here on my knees--in the dust, so
+to speak--not to let it out.
+
+MARGARET. I'll tell everybody.
+
+_Knox collapses in despair. Mrs Knox tries to pray and cannot. Margaret
+stands inflexible._
+
+
+
+
+ACT III
+
+_Again in the Gilbeys' dining-room. Afternoon. The table is not laid: it
+is draped in its ordinary cloth, with pen and ink, an exercise-book, and
+school-books on it. Bobby Gilbey is in the arm-chair, crouching over
+the fire, reading an illustrated paper. He is a pretty youth, of very
+suburban gentility, strong and manly enough by nature, but untrained and
+unsatisfactory, his parents having imagined that domestic restriction
+is what they call "bringing up." He has learnt nothing from it except a
+habit of evading it by deceit._
+
+_He gets up to ring the bell; then resumes his crouch. Juggins answers
+the bell._
+
+BOBBY. Juggins.
+
+JUGGINS. Sir?
+
+BOBBY. [morosely sarcastic] Sir be blowed!
+
+JUGGINS. [cheerfully] Not at all, sir.
+
+BOBBY. I'm a gaol-bird: youre a respectable man.
+
+JUGGINS. That doesnt matter, sir. Your father pays me to call you sir;
+and as I take the money, I keep my part of the bargain.
+
+BOBBY. Would you call me sir if you wernt paid to do it?
+
+JUGGINS. No, sir.
+
+BOBBY. Ive been talking to Dora about you.
+
+JUGGINS. Indeed, sir?
+
+BOBBY. Yes. Dora says your name cant be Juggins, and that you have the
+manners of a gentleman. I always thought you hadnt any manners. Anyhow,
+your manners are different from the manners of a gentleman in my set.
+
+JUGGINS. They would be, sir.
+
+BOBBY. You dont feel disposed to be communicative on the subject of
+Dora's notion, I suppose.
+
+JUGGINS. No, sir.
+
+BOBBY. [throwing his paper on the floor and lifting his knees over the
+arm of the chair so as to turn towards the footman] It was part of your
+bargain that you were to valet me a bit, wasnt it?
+
+JUGGINS. Yes, sir.
+
+BOBBY. Well, can you tell me the proper way to get out of an engagement
+to a girl without getting into a row for breach of promise or behaving
+like a regular cad?
+
+JUGGINS. No, sir. You cant get out of an engagement without behaving
+like a cad if the lady wishes to hold you to it.
+
+BOBBY. But it wouldnt be for her happiness to marry me when I dont
+really care for her.
+
+JUGGINS. Women dont always marry for happiness, sir. They often marry
+because they wish to be married women and not old maids.
+
+BOBBY. Then what am I to do?
+
+JUGGINS. Marry her, sir, or behave like a cad.
+
+BOBBY. [Jumping up] Well, I wont marry her: thats flat. What would you
+do if you were in my place?
+
+JUGGINS. I should tell the young lady that I found I couldnt fulfil my
+engagement.
+
+BOBBY. But youd have to make some excuse, you know. I want to give it a
+gentlemanly turn: to say I'm not worthy of her, or something like that.
+
+JUGGINS. That is not a gentlemanly turn, sir. Quite the contrary.
+
+BOBBY. I dont see that at all. Do you mean that it's not exactly true?
+
+JUGGINS. Not at all, sir.
+
+BOBBY. I can say that no other girl can ever be to me what shes been.
+That would be quite true, because our circumstances have been rather
+exceptional; and she'll imagine I mean I'm fonder of her than I can
+ever be of anyone else. You see, Juggins, a gentleman has to think of a
+girl's feelings.
+
+JUGGINS. If you wish to spare her feelings, sir, you can marry her. If
+you hurt her feelings by refusing, you had better not try to get credit
+for considerateness at the same time by pretending to spare them. She
+wont like it. And it will start an argument, of which you will get the
+worse.
+
+BOBBY. But, you know, I'm not really worthy of her.
+
+JUGGINS. Probably she never supposed you were, sir.
+
+BOBBY. Oh, I say, Juggins, you are a pessimist.
+
+JUGGINS. [preparing to go] Anything else, sir?
+
+BOBBY. [querulously] You havnt been much use. [He wanders disconsolately
+across the room]. You generally put me up to the correct way of doing
+things.
+
+JUGGINS. I assure you, sir, theres no correct way of jilting. It's not
+correct in itself.
+
+BOBBY. [hopefully] I'll tell you what. I'll say I cant hold her to an
+engagement with a man whos been in quod. Thatll do it. [He seats himself
+on the table, relieved and confident].
+
+JUGGINS. Very dangerous, sir. No woman will deny herself the romantic
+luxury of self-sacrifice and forgiveness when they take the form of
+doing something agreeable. Shes almost sure to say that your misfortune
+will draw her closer to you.
+
+BOBBY. What a nuisance! I dont know what to do. You know, Juggins, your
+cool simple-minded way of doing it wouldnt go down in Denmark Hill.
+
+JUGGINS. I daresay not, sir. No doubt youd prefer to make it look like
+an act of self-sacrifice for her sake on your part, or provoke her to
+break the engagement herself. Both plans have been tried repeatedly, but
+never with success, as far as my knowledge goes.
+
+BOBBY. You have a devilish cool way of laying down the law. You know,
+in my class you have to wrap up things a bit. Denmark Hill isn't
+Camberwell, you know.
+
+JUGGINS. I have noticed, sir, that Denmark Hill thinks that the higher
+you go in the social scale, the less sincerity is allowed; and that
+only tramps and riff-raff are quite sincere. Thats a mistake. Tramps
+are often shameless; but theyre never sincere. Swells--if I may use that
+convenient name for the upper classes--play much more with their cards
+on the table. If you tell the young lady that you want to jilt her, and
+she calls you a pig, the tone of the transaction may leave much to
+be desired; but itll be less Camberwellian than if you say youre not
+worthy.
+
+BOBBY. Oh, I cant make you understand, Juggins. The girl isnt a
+scullery-maid. I want to do it delicately.
+
+JUGGINS. A mistake, sir, believe me, if you are not a born artist in
+that line.--Beg pardon, sir, I think I heard the bell. [He goes out].
+
+_Bobby, much perplexed, shoves his hands into his pockets, and comes
+off the table, staring disconsolately straight before him; then goes
+reluctantly to his books, and sits down to write. Juggins returns._
+
+JUGGINS. [announcing] Miss Knox.
+
+_Margaret comes in. Juggins withdraws._
+
+MARGARET. Still grinding away for that Society of Arts examination,
+Bobby? Youll never pass.
+
+BOBBY. [rising] No: I was just writing to you.
+
+MARGARET. What about?
+
+BOBBY. Oh, nothing. At least-- How are you?
+
+MARGARET. [passing round the other end of the table and putting down on
+it a copy of Lloyd's Weekly and her purse-bag] Quite well, thank you.
+How did you enjoy Brighton?
+
+BOBBY. Brighton! I wasnt at-- Oh yes, of course. Oh, pretty well. Is
+your aunt all right?
+
+MARGARET. My aunt! I suppose so. I havent seen her for a month.
+
+BOBBY. I thought you were down staying with her.
+
+MARGARET. Oh! was that what they told you?
+
+BOBBY. Yes. Why? Werent you really?
+
+MARGARET. No. Ive something to tell you. Sit down and lets be
+comfortable.
+
+_She sits on the edge of the table. He sits beside her, and puts his arm
+wearily round her waist._
+
+MARGARET. You neednt do that if you dont like, Bobby. Suppose we get off
+duty for the day, just to see what it's like.
+
+BOBBY. Off duty? What do you mean?
+
+MARGARET. You know very well what I mean. Bobby: did you ever care one
+little scrap for me in that sort of way? Dont funk answering: _I_ dont
+care a bit for you--that way.
+
+BOBBY. [removing his arm rather huffily] I beg your pardon, I'm sure. I
+thought you did.
+
+MARGARET. Well, did you? Come! Dont be mean. Ive owned up. You can put
+it all on me if you like; but I dont believe you care any more than I
+do.
+
+BOBBY. You mean weve been shoved into it rather by the pars and mars.
+
+MARGARET. Yes.
+
+BOBBY. Well, it's not that I dont care for you: in fact, no girl can
+ever be to me exactly what you are; but weve been brought up so much
+together that it feels more like brother and sister than--well, than the
+other thing, doesnt it?
+
+MARGARET. Just so. How did you find out the difference?
+
+BOBBY. [blushing] Oh, I say!
+
+MARGARET. I found out from a Frenchman.
+
+BOBBY. Oh, I say! [He comes off the table in his consternation].
+
+MARGARET. Did you learn it from a Frenchwoman? You know you must have
+learnt it from somebody.
+
+BOBBY. Not a Frenchwoman. Shes quite a nice woman. But shes been rather
+unfortunate. The daughter of a clergyman.
+
+MARGARET. [startled] Oh, Bobby! That sort of woman!
+
+BOBBY. What sort of woman?
+
+MARGARET. You dont believe shes really a clergyman's daughter, do you,
+you silly boy? It's a stock joke.
+
+BOBBY. Do you mean to say you dont believe me?
+
+MARGARET. No: I mean to say I dont believe her.
+
+BOBBY. [curious and interested, resuming his seat on the table beside
+her]. What do you know about her? What do you know about all this sort
+of thing?
+
+MARGARET. What sort of thing, Bobby?
+
+BOBBY. Well, about life.
+
+MARGARET. Ive lived a lot since I saw you last. I wasnt at my aunt's.
+All that time that you were in Brighton, I mean.
+
+BOBBY. I wasnt at Brighton, Meg. I'd better tell you: youre bound to
+find out sooner or later. [He begins his confession humbly, avoiding
+her gaze]. Meg: it's rather awful: youll think me no end of a beast. Ive
+been in prison.
+
+MARGARET. You!
+
+BOBBY. Yes, me. For being drunk and assaulting the police.
+
+MARGARET. Do you mean to say that you--oh! this is a let-down for me.
+[She comes off the table and drops, disconsolate, into a chair at the
+end of it furthest from the hearth].
+
+BOBBY. Of course I couldnt hold you to our engagement after that. I was
+writing to you to break it off. [He also descends from the table and
+makes slowly for the hearth]. You must think me an utter rotter.
+
+MARGARET. Oh, has everybody been in prison for being drunk and
+assaulting the police? How long were you in?
+
+BOBBY. A fortnight.
+
+MARGARET. Thats what I was in for.
+
+BOBBY. What are you talking about? In where?
+
+MARGARET. In quod.
+
+BOBBY. But I'm serious: I'm not rotting. Really and truly--
+
+MARGARET. What did you do to the copper?
+
+BOBBY. Nothing, absolutely nothing. He exaggerated grossly. I only
+laughed at him.
+
+MARGARET. [jumping up, triumphant] Ive beaten you hollow. I knocked
+out two of his teeth. Ive got one of them. He sold it to me for ten
+shillings.
+
+BOBBY. Now please do stop fooling, Meg. I tell you I'm not rotting. [He
+sits down in the armchair, rather sulkily].
+
+MARGARET. [taking up the copy of Lloyd's Weekly and going to him] And
+I tell you I'm not either. Look! Heres a report of it. The daily papers
+are no good; but the Sunday papers are splendid. [She sits on the arm
+of the chair]. See! [Reading]: "Hardened at Eighteen. A quietly dressed,
+respectable-looking girl who refuses her name"--thats me.
+
+BOBBY. [pausing a moment in his perusal] Do you mean to say that you
+went on the loose out of pure devilment?
+
+MARGARET. I did no harm. I went to see a lovely dance. I picked up a
+nice man and went to have a dance myself. I cant imagine anything more
+innocent and more happy. All the bad part was done by other people:
+they did it out of pure devilment if you like. Anyhow, here we are, two
+gaolbirds, Bobby, disgraced forever. Isnt it a relief?
+
+BOBBY. [rising stiffly] But you know, it's not the same for a girl. A
+man may do things a woman maynt. [He stands on the hearthrug with his
+back to the fire].
+
+MARGARET. Are you scandalized, Bobby?
+
+BOBBY. Well, you cant expect me to approve of it, can you, Meg? I never
+thought you were that sort of girl.
+
+MARGARET. [rising indignantly] I'm not. You mustnt pretend to think that
+_I_'m a clergyman's daughter, Bobby.
+
+BOBBY. I wish you wouldnt chaff about that. Dont forget the row you got
+into for letting out that you admired Juggins [she turns her back on him
+quickly]--a footman! And what about the Frenchman?
+
+MARGARET. [facing him again] I know nothing about the Frenchman except
+that hes a very nice fellow and can swing his leg round like the hand of
+a clock and knock a policeman down with it. He was in Wormwood Scrubbs
+with you. I was in Holloway.
+
+BOBBY. It's all very well to make light of it, Meg; but this is a bit
+thick, you know.
+
+MARGARET. Do you feel you couldnt marry a woman whos been in prison?
+
+BOBBY. [hastily] No. I never said that. It might even give a woman a
+greater claim on a man. Any girl, if she were thoughtless and a bit
+on, perhaps, might get into a scrape. Anyone who really understood her
+character could see there was no harm in it. But youre not the larky
+sort. At least you usent to be.
+
+MARGARET. I'm not; and I never will be. [She walks straight up to him].
+I didnt do it for a lark, Bob: I did it out of the very depths of my
+nature. I did it because I'm that sort of person. I did it in one of my
+religious fits. I'm hardened at eighteen, as they say. So what about the
+match, now?
+
+BOBBY. Well, I dont think you can fairly hold me to it, Meg. Of course
+it would be ridiculous for me to set up to be shocked, or anything of
+that sort. I cant afford to throw stones at anybody; and I dont pretend
+to. I can understand a lark; I can forgive a slip; as long as it is
+understood that it is only a lark or a slip. But to go on the loose on
+principle; to talk about religion in connection with it; to--to--well,
+Meg, I do find that a bit thick, I must say. I hope youre not in earnest
+when you talk that way.
+
+MARGARET. Bobby: youre no good. No good to me, anyhow.
+
+BOBBY. [huffed] I'm sorry, Miss Knox.
+
+MARGARET. Goodbye, Mr Gilbey. [She turns on her heel and goes to
+the other end of the table]. I suppose you wont introduce me to the
+clergyman's daughter.
+
+BOBBY. I dont think she'd like it. There are limits, after all. [He sits
+down at the table, as if to to resume work at his books: a hint to her
+to go].
+
+MARGARET. [on her way to the door] Ring the bell, Bobby; and tell
+Juggins to shew me out.
+
+BOBBY. [reddening] I'm not a cad, Meg.
+
+MARGARET. [coming to the table] Then do something nice to prevent us
+feeling mean about this afterwards. Youd better kiss me. You neednt ever
+do it again.
+
+BOBBY. If I'm no good, I dont see what fun it would be for you.
+
+MARGARET. Oh, it'd be no fun. If I wanted what you call fun, I should
+ask the Frenchman to kiss me--or Juggins.
+
+BOBBY. [rising and retreating to the hearth] Oh, dont be disgusting,
+Meg. Dont be low.
+
+MARGARET. [determinedly, preparing to use force] Now, I'll make you
+kiss me, just to punish you. [She seizes his wrist; pulls him off his
+balance; and gets her arm round his neck].
+
+BOBBY. No. Stop. Leave go, will you.
+
+_Juggins appears at the door._
+
+JUGGINS. Miss Delaney, Sir. [Dora comes in. Juggins goes out. Margaret
+hastily releases Bobby, and goes to the other side of the room.]
+
+DORA. [through the door, to the departing Juggins] Well, you are a
+Juggins to shew me up when theres company. [To Margaret and Bobby] It's
+all right, dear: all right, old man: I'll wait in Juggins's pantry til
+youre disengaged.
+
+MARGARET. Dont you know me?
+
+DORA. [coming to the middle of the room and looking at her very
+attentively] Why, it's never No. 406!
+
+MARGARET. Yes it is.
+
+DORA. Well, I should never have known you out of the uniform. How did
+you get out? You were doing a month, wernt you?
+
+MARGARET. My bloke paid the fine the day he got out himself.
+
+DORA. A real gentleman! [Pointing to Bobby, who is staring open-mouthed]
+Look at him. He cant take it in.
+
+BOBBY. I suppose you made her acquaintance in prison, Meg. But when it
+comes to talking about blokes and all that--well!
+
+MARGARET. Oh, Ive learnt the language; and I like it. It's another
+barrier broken down.
+
+BOBBY. It's not so much the language, Meg. But I think [he looks at Dora
+and stops].
+
+MARGARET. [suddenly dangerous] What do you think, Bobby?
+
+DORA. He thinks you oughtnt to be so free with me, dearie. It does him
+credit: he always was a gentleman, you know.
+
+MARGARET. Does him credit! To insult you like that! Bobby: say that that
+wasnt what you meant.
+
+BOBBY. I didnt say it was.
+
+MARGARET. Well, deny that it was.
+
+BOBBY. No. I wouldnt have said it in front of Dora; but I do think it's
+not quite the same thing my knowing her and you knowing her.
+
+DORA. Of course it isnt, old man. [To Margaret] I'll just trot off and
+come back in half an hour. You two can make it up together. I'm really
+not fit company for you, dearie: I couldnt live up to you. [She turns to
+go].
+
+MARGARET. Stop. Do you believe he could live up to me?
+
+DORA. Well, I'll never say anything to stand between a girl and a
+respectable marriage, or to stop a decent lad from settling himself. I
+have a conscience; though I maynt be as particular as some.
+
+MARGARET. You seem to me to be a very decent sort; and Bobby's behaving
+like a skunk.
+
+BOBBY. [much ruffled] Nice language that!
+
+DORA. Well, dearie, men have to do some awfully mean things to keep up
+their respectability. But you cant blame them for that, can you? Ive
+met Bobby walking with his mother; and of course he cut me dead. I wont
+pretend I liked it; but what could he do, poor dear?
+
+MARGARET. And now he wants me to cut you dead to keep him in
+countenance. Well, I shant: not if my whole family were there. But
+I'll cut him dead if he doesnt treat you properly. [To Bobby, with a
+threatening move in his direction] I'll educate you, you young beast.
+
+BOBBY. [furious, meeting her half way] Who are you calling a young
+beast?
+
+MARGARET. You.
+
+DORA. [peacemaking] Now, dearies!
+
+BOBBY. If you dont take care, youll get your fat head jolly well
+clouted.
+
+MARGARET. If you dont take care, the policeman's tooth will only be the
+beginning of a collection.
+
+DORA. Now, loveys, be good.
+
+_Bobby, lost to all sense of adult dignity, puts out his tongue at
+Margaret. Margaret, equally furious, catches his protended countenance a
+box on the cheek. He hurls himself her. They wrestle._
+
+BOBBY. Cat! I'll teach you.
+
+MARGARET. Pig! Beast! [She forces him backwards on the table]. Now where
+are you?
+
+DORA. [calling] Juggins, Juggins. Theyll murder one another.
+
+JUGGINS. [throwing open the door, and announcing] Monsieur Duvallet.
+
+_Duvallet enters. Sudden cessation of hostilities, and dead silence. The
+combatants separate by the whole width of the room. Juggins withdraws._
+
+DUVALLET. I fear I derange you.
+
+MARGARET. Not at all. Bobby: you really are a beast: Monsieur Duvallet
+will think I'm always fighting.
+
+DUVALLET. Practising jujitsu or the new Iceland wrestling. Admirable,
+Miss Knox. The athletic young Englishwoman is an example to all Europe.
+[Indicating Bobby] Your instructor, no doubt. Monsieur-- [he bows].
+
+BOBBY. [bowing awkwardly] How d'y' do?
+
+MARGARET. [to Bobby] I'm so sorry, Bobby: I asked Monsieur Duvallet
+to call for me here; and I forgot to tell you. [Introducing] Monsieur
+Duvallet: Miss Four hundred and seven. Mr Bobby Gilbey. [Duvallet bows].
+I really dont know how to explain our relationships. Bobby and I are
+like brother and sister.
+
+DUVALLET. Perfectly. I noticed it.
+
+MARGARET. Bobby and Miss--Miss----
+
+DORA. Delaney, dear. [To Duvallet, bewitchingly] Darling Dora, to real
+friends.
+
+MARGARET. Bobby and Dora are--are--well, not brother and sister.
+
+DUVALLET. [with redoubled comprehension] Perfectly.
+
+MARGARET. Bobby has spent the last fortnight in prison. You dont mind,
+do you?
+
+DUVALLET. No, naturally. _I_ have spent the last fortnight in prison.
+
+_The conversation drops. Margaret renews it with an effort._
+
+MARGARET. Dora has spent the last fortnight in prison.
+
+DUVALLET. Quite so. I felicitate Mademoiselle on her enlargement.
+
+DORA. _Trop merci_, as they say in Boulogne. No call to be stiff with
+one another, have we?
+
+_Juggins comes in._
+
+JUGGINS. Beg pardon, sir. Mr and Mrs Gilbey are coming up the street.
+
+DORA. Let me absquatulate [making for the door].
+
+JUGGINS. If you wish to leave without being seen, you had better step
+into my pantry and leave afterwards.
+
+DORA. Right oh! [She bursts into song] Hide me in the meat safe til the
+cop goes by. Hum the dear old music as his step draws nigh. [She goes
+out on tiptoe].
+
+MARGARET. I wont stay here if she has to hide. I'll keep her company in
+the pantry. [She follows Dora].
+
+BOBBY. Lets all go. We cant have any fun with the Mar here. I say,
+Juggins: you can give us tea in the pantry, cant you?
+
+JUGGINS. Certainly, sir.
+
+BOBBY. Right. Say nothing to my mother. You dont mind, Mr. Doovalley, do
+you?
+
+DUVALLET. I shall be charmed.
+
+BOBBY. Right you are. Come along. [At the door] Oh, by the way, Juggins,
+fetch down that concertina from my room, will you?
+
+JUGGINS. Yes, sir. [Bobby goes out. Duvallet follows him to the door].
+You understand, sir, that Miss Knox is a lady absolutely _comme il
+faut_?
+
+DUVALLET. Perfectly. But the other?
+
+JUGGINS. The other, sir, may be both charitably and accurately described
+in your native idiom as a daughter of joy.
+
+DUVALLET. It is what I thought. These English domestic interiors are
+very interesting. [He goes out, followed by Juggins].
+
+_Presently Mr and Mrs Gilbey come in. They take their accustomed places:
+he on the hearthrug, she at the colder end of the table._
+
+MRS GILBEY. Did you smell scent in the hall, Rob?
+
+GILBEY. No, I didnt. And I dont want to smell it. Dont you go looking
+for trouble, Maria.
+
+MRS GILBEY. [snuffing up the perfumed atmosphere] Shes been here.
+[Gilbey rings the bell]. What are you ringing for? Are you going to ask?
+
+GILBEY. No, I'm not going to ask. Juggins said this morning he wanted to
+speak to me. If he likes to tell me, let him; but I'm not going to ask;
+and dont you either. [Juggins appears at the door]. You said you wanted
+to say something to me.
+
+JUGGINS. When it would be convenient to you, sir.
+
+GILBEY. Well, what is it?
+
+MRS GILBEY. Oh, Juggins, we're expecting Mr and Mrs Knox to tea.
+
+GILBEY. He knows that. [He sits down. Then, to Juggins] What is it?
+
+JUGGINS. [advancing to the middle of the table] Would it inconvenience
+you, sir, if I was to give you a month's notice?
+
+GILBEY. [taken aback] What! Why? Aint you satisfied?
+
+JUGGINS. Perfectly, sir. It is not that I want to better myself, I
+assure you.
+
+GILBEY. Well, what do you want to leave for, then? Do you want to worse
+yourself?
+
+JUGGINS. No, sir. Ive been well treated in your most comfortable
+establishment; and I should be greatly distressed if you or Mrs Gilbey
+were to interpret my notice as an expression of dissatisfaction.
+
+GILBEY. [paternally] Now you listen to me, Juggins. I'm an older man
+than you. Dont you throw out dirty water til you get in fresh. Dont
+get too big for your boots. Youre like all servants nowadays: you think
+youve only to hold up your finger to get the pick of half a dozen jobs.
+But you wont be treated everywhere as youre treated here. In bed every
+night before eleven; hardly a ring at the door except on Mrs Gilbey's
+day once a month; and no other manservant to interfere with you. It may
+be a bit quiet perhaps; but youre past the age of adventure. Take my
+advice: think over it. You suit me; and I'm prepared to make it suit you
+if youre dissatisfied--in reason, you know.
+
+JUGGINS. I realize my advantages, sir; but Ive private reasons--
+
+GILBEY. [cutting him short angrily and retiring to the hearthrug in
+dudgeon] Oh, I know. Very well: go. The sooner the better.
+
+MRS GILBEY. Oh, not until we're suited. He must stay his month.
+
+GILBEY. [sarcastic] Do you want to lose him his character, Maria? Do
+you think I dont see what it is? We're prison folk now. Weve been in the
+police court. [To Juggins] Well, I suppose you know your own business
+best. I take your notice: you can go when your month is up, or sooner,
+if you like.
+
+JUGGINS. Believe me, sir--
+
+GILBEY. Thats enough: I dont want any excuses. I dont blame you. You can
+go downstairs now, if youve nothing else to trouble me about.
+
+JUGGINS. I really cant leave it at that, sir. I assure you Ive no
+objection to young Mr Gilbey's going to prison. You may do six months
+yourself, sir, and welcome, without a word of remonstrance from me. I'm
+leaving solely because my brother, who has suffered a bereavement, and
+feels lonely, begs me to spend a few months with him until he gets over
+it.
+
+GILBEY. And is he to keep you all that time? or are you to spend your
+savings in comforting him? Have some sense, man: how can you afford such
+things?
+
+JUGGINS. My brother can afford to keep me, sir. The truth is, he objects
+to my being in service.
+
+GILBEY. Is that any reason why you should be dependent on him? Dont
+do it, Juggins: pay your own way like an honest lad; and dont eat your
+brother's bread while youre able to earn your own.
+
+JUGGINS. There is sound sense in that, sir. But unfortunately it is
+a tradition in my family that the younger brothers should spunge to a
+considerable extent on the eldest.
+
+GILBEY. Then the sooner that tradition is broken, the better, my man.
+
+JUGGINS. A Radical sentiment, sir. But an excellent one.
+
+GILBEY. Radical! What do you mean? Dont you begin to take liberties,
+Juggins, now that you know we're loth to part with you. Your brother
+isnt a duke, you know.
+
+JUGGINS. Unfortunately, he is, sir.
+
+ GILBEY.     |   What!    |
+             |            | _together_
+             |            |
+ MRS GILBEY. |   Juggins! |
+
+JUGGINS. Excuse me, sir: the bell. [He goes out].
+
+GILBEY. [overwhelmed] Maria: did you understand him to say his brother
+was a duke?
+
+MRS GILBEY. Fancy his condescending! Perhaps if youd offer to raise his
+wages and treat him as one of the family, he'd stay.
+
+GILBEY. And have my own servant above me! Not me. Whats the world coming
+to? Heres Bobby and--
+
+JUGGINS. [entering and announcing] Mr and Mrs Knox.
+
+_The Knoxes come in. Juggins takes two chairs from the wall and places
+them at the table, between the host and hostess. Then he withdraws._
+
+MRS GILBEY. [to Mrs Knox] How are you, dear?
+
+MRS KNOX. Nicely, thank you. Good evening, Mr Gilbey. [They shake hands;
+and she takes the chair nearest Mrs Gilbey. Mr Knox takes the other
+chair].
+
+GILBEY. [sitting down] I was just saying, Knox, What is the world coming
+to?
+
+KNOX. [appealing to his wife] What was I saying myself only this
+morning?
+
+MRS KNOX. This is a strange time. I was never one to talk about the end
+of the world; but look at the things that have happened!
+
+KNOX. Earthquakes!
+
+GILBEY. San Francisco!
+
+MRS GILBEY. Jamaica!
+
+KNOX. Martinique!
+
+GILBEY. Messina!
+
+MRS GILBEY. The plague in China!
+
+MRS KNOX. The floods in France!
+
+GILBEY. My Bobby in Wormwood Scrubbs!
+
+KNOX. Margaret in Holloway!
+
+GILBEY. And now my footman tells me his brother's a duke!
+
+ KNOX.       |   No!
+             |
+ MRS KNOX.   | Whats that?
+
+GILBEY. Just before he let you in. A duke! Here has everything been
+respectable from the beginning of the world, as you may say, to the
+present day; and all of a sudden everything is turned upside down.
+
+MRS KNOX. It's like in the book of Revelations. But I do say that unless
+people have happiness within themselves, all the earthquakes, all the
+floods, and all the prisons in the world cant make them really happy.
+
+KNOX. It isnt alone the curious things that are happening, but the
+unnatural way people are taking them. Why, theres Margaret been in
+prison, and she hasnt time to go to all the invitations shes had from
+people that never asked her before.
+
+GILBEY. I never knew we could live without being respectable.
+
+MRS GILBEY. Oh, Rob, what a thing to say! Who says we're not
+respectable?
+
+GILBEY. Well, it's not what I call respectable to have your children in
+and out of gaol.
+
+KNOX. Oh come, Gilbey! we're not tramps because weve had, as it were, an
+accident.
+
+GILBEY. It's no use, Knox: look it in the face. Did I ever tell you my
+father drank?
+
+KNOX. No. But I knew it. Simmons told me.
+
+GILBEY. Yes: he never could keep his mouth quiet: he told me your aunt
+was a kleptomaniac.
+
+MRS KNOX. It wasnt true, Mr Gilbey. She used to pick up handkerchiefs if
+she saw them lying about; but you might trust her with untold silver.
+
+GILBEY. My Uncle Phil was a teetotaller. My father used to say to me:
+Rob, he says, dont you ever have a weakness. If you find one getting a
+hold on you, make a merit of it, he says. Your Uncle Phil doesnt like
+spirits; and he makes a merit of it, and is chairman of the Blue Ribbon
+Committee. I do like spirits; and I make a merit of it, and I'm the King
+Cockatoo of the Convivial Cockatoos. Never put yourself in the wrong, he
+says. I used to boast about what a good boy Bobby was. Now I swank about
+what a dog he is; and it pleases people just as well. What a world it
+is!
+
+KNOX. It turned my blood cold at first to hear Margaret telling people
+about Holloway; but it goes down better than her singing used to.
+
+MRS KNOX. I never thought she sang right after all those lessons we paid
+for.
+
+GILBEY. Lord, Knox, it was lucky you and me got let in together. I tell
+you straight, if it hadnt been for Bobby's disgrace, I'd have broke up
+the firm.
+
+KNOX. I shouldnt have blamed you: I'd have done the same only for
+Margaret. Too much straightlacedness narrows a man's mind. Talking
+of that, what about those hygienic corset advertisements that Vines &
+Jackson want us to put in the window? I told Vines they werent decent
+and we couldnt shew them in our shop. I was pretty high with him. But
+what am I to say to him now if he comes and throws this business in our
+teeth?
+
+GILBEY. Oh, put em in. We may as well go it a bit now.
+
+MRS GILBEY. Youve been going it quite far enough, Rob. [To Mrs Knox] He
+wont get up in the mornings now: he that was always out of bed at seven
+to the tick!
+
+MRS KNOX. You hear that, Jo? [To Mrs Gilbey] Hes taken to whisky and
+soda. A pint a week! And the beer the same as before!
+
+KNOX. Oh, dont preach, old girl.
+
+MRS KNOX. [To Mrs Gilbey] Thats a new name hes got for me. [to Knox] I
+tell you, Jo, this doesnt sit well on you. You may call it preaching if
+you like; but it's the truth for all that. I say that if youve happiness
+within yourself, you dont need to seek it outside, spending money on
+drink and theatres and bad company, and being miserable after all. You
+can sit at home and be happy; and you can work and be happy. If you have
+that in you, the spirit will set you free to do what you want and guide
+you to do right. But if you havent got it, then youd best be respectable
+and stick to the ways that are marked out for you; for youve nothing
+else to keep you straight.
+
+KNOX. [angrily] And is a man never to have a bit of fun? See whats come
+of it with your daughter! She was to be content with your happiness
+that youre always talking about; and how did the spirit guide her? To
+a month's hard for being drunk and assaulting the police. Did _I_ ever
+assault the police?
+
+MRS KNOX. You wouldnt have the courage. I dont blame the girl.
+
+ MRS GILBEY.     |   Oh, Maria!  What are you saying?
+                 |
+
+ GILBEY.         |   What!  And you so pious!
+
+MRS KNOX. She went where the spirit guided her. And what harm there was
+in it she knew nothing about.
+
+GILBEY. Oh, come, Mrs Knox! Girls are not so innocent as all that.
+
+MRS KNOX. I dont say she was ignorant. But I do say that she didnt know
+what we know: I mean the way certain temptations get a sudden hold that
+no goodness nor self-control is any use against. She was saved from
+that, and had a rough lesson too; and I say it was no earthly protection
+that did that. But dont think, you two men, that youll be protected if
+you make what she did an excuse to go and do as youd like to do if it
+wasnt for fear of losing your characters. The spirit wont guide you,
+because it isnt in you; and it never had been: not in either of you.
+
+GILBEY. [with ironic humility] I'm sure I'm obliged to you for your good
+opinion, Mrs Knox.
+
+MRS KNOX. Well, I will say for you, Mr Gilbey, that youre better than my
+man here. Hes a bitter hard heathen, is my Jo, God help me! [She begins
+to cry quietly].
+
+KNOX. Now, dont take on like that, Amelia. You know I always give in to
+you that you were right about religion. But one of us had to think of
+other things, or we'd have starved, we and the child.
+
+MRS KNOX. How do you know youd have starved? All the other things might
+have been added unto you.
+
+GILBEY. Come, Mrs Knox, dont tell me Knox is a sinner. I know better.
+I'm sure youd be the first to be sorry if anything was to happen to him.
+
+KNOX. [bitterly to his wife] Youve always had some grudge against me;
+and nobody but yourself can understand what it is.
+
+MRS KNOX. I wanted a man who had that happiness within himself. You made
+me think you had it; but it was nothing but being in love with me.
+
+MRS GILBEY. And do you blame him for that?
+
+MRS KNOX. I blame nobody. But let him not think he can walk by his own
+light. I tell him that if he gives up being respectable he'll go right
+down to the bottom of the hill. He has no powers inside himself to keep
+him steady; so let him cling to the powers outside him.
+
+KNOX. [rising angrily] Who wants to give up being respectable? All this
+for a pint of whisky that lasted a week! How long would it have lasted
+Simmons, I wonder?
+
+MRS KNOX. [gently] Oh, well, say no more, Jo. I wont plague you about
+it. [He sits down]. You never did understand; and you never will. Hardly
+anybody understands: even Margaret didnt til she went to prison. She
+does now; and I shall have a companion in the house after all these
+lonely years.
+
+KNOX. [beginning to cry] I did all I could to make you happy. I never
+said a harsh word to you.
+
+GILBEY. [rising indignantly] What right have you to treat a man like
+that? an honest respectable husband? as if he were dirt under your feet?
+
+KNOX. Let her alone, Gilbey. [Gilbey sits down, but mutinously].
+
+MRS KNOX. Well, you gave me all you could, Jo; and if it wasnt what I
+wanted, that wasnt your fault. But I'd rather have you as you were than
+since you took to whisky and soda.
+
+KNOX. I dont want any whisky and soda. I'll take the pledge if you like.
+
+MRS KNOX. No: you shall have your beer because you like it. The whisky
+was only brag. And if you and me are to remain friends, Mr Gilbey, youll
+get up to-morrow morning at seven.
+
+GILBEY. [defiantly] Damme if I will! There!
+
+MRS KNOX. [with gentle pity] How do you know, Mr Gilbey, what youll do
+to-morrow morning?
+
+GILBEY. Why shouldnt I know? Are we children not to be let do what we
+like, and our own sons and daughters kicking their heels all over the
+place? [To Knox] I was never one to interfere between man and wife,
+Knox; but if Maria started ordering me about like that--
+
+MRS GILBEY. Now dont be naughty, Rob. You know you mustnt set yourself
+up against religion?
+
+GILBEY. Whos setting himself up against religion?
+
+MRS KNOX. It doesnt matter whether you set yourself up against it or
+not, Mr. Gilbey. If it sets itself up against you, youll have to go the
+appointed way: it's no use quarrelling about it with me that am as great
+a sinner as yourself.
+
+GILBEY. Oh, indeed! And who told you I was a sinner?
+
+MRS GILBEY. Now, Rob, you know we are all sinners. What else is
+religion?
+
+GILBEY. I say nothing against religion. I suppose were all sinners, in
+a manner of speaking; but I dont like to have it thrown at me as if I'd
+really done anything.
+
+MRS GILBEY. Mrs Knox is speaking for your good, Rob.
+
+GILBEY. Well, I dont like to be spoken to for my good. Would anybody
+like it?
+
+MRS KNOX. Dont take offence where none is meant, Mr Gilbey. Talk about
+something else. No good ever comes of arguing about such things among
+the like of us.
+
+KNOX. The like of us! Are you throwing it in our teeth that your people
+were in the wholesale and thought Knox and Gilbey wasnt good enough for
+you?
+
+MRS KNOX. No, Jo: you know I'm not. What better were my people than
+yours, for all their pride? But Ive noticed it all my life: we're
+ignorant. We dont really know whats right and whats wrong. We're all
+right as long as things go on the way they always did. We bring our
+children up just as we were brought up; and we go to church or chapel
+just as our parents did; and we say what everybody says; and it goes
+on all right until something out of the way happens: theres a family
+quarrel, or one of the children goes wrong, or a father takes to drink,
+or an aunt goes mad, or one of us finds ourselves doing something
+we never thought we'd want to do. And then you know what happens:
+complaints and quarrels and huff and offence and bad language and bad
+temper and regular bewilderment as if Satan possessed us all. We find
+out then that with all our respectability and piety, weve no real
+religion and no way of telling right from wrong. Weve nothing but our
+habits; and when theyre upset, where are we? Just like Peter in the
+storm trying to walk on the water and finding he couldnt.
+
+MRS GILBEY. [piously] Aye! He found out, didnt he?
+
+GILBEY. [reverently] I never denied that youve a great intellect, Mrs
+Knox--
+
+MRS KNOX. Oh get along with you, Gilbey, if you begin talking about my
+intellect. Give us some tea, Maria. Ive said my say; and Im sure I beg
+the company's pardon for being so long about it, and so disagreeable.
+
+MRS GILBEY. Ring, Rob. [Gilbey rings]. Stop. Juggins will think we're
+ringing for him.
+
+GILBEY. [appalled] It's too late. I rang before I thought of it.
+
+MRS GILBEY. Step down and apologize, Rob.
+
+KNOX. Is it him that you said was brother to a--
+
+_Juggins comes in with the tea-tray. All rise. He takes the tray to Mrs.
+Gilbey._
+
+GILBEY. I didnt mean to ask you to do this, Mr Juggins. I wasnt thinking
+when I rang.
+
+MRS GILBEY. [trying to take the tray from him] Let me, Juggins.
+
+JUGGINS. Please sit down, madam. Allow me to discharge my duties just as
+usual, sir. I assure you that is the correct thing. [They sit down, ill
+at ease, whilst he places the tray on the table. He then goes out for
+the curate].
+
+KNOX. [lowering his voice] Is this all right, Gilbey? Anybody may be the
+son of a duke, you know. Is he legitimate?
+
+GILBEY. Good lord! I never thought of that.
+
+_Juggins returns with the cakes. They regard him with suspicion._
+
+GILBEY. [whispering to Knox] You ask him.
+
+KNOX. [to Juggins] Just a word with you, my man. Was your mother married
+to your father?
+
+JUGGINS. I believe so, sir. I cant say from personal knowledge. It was
+before my time.
+
+GILBEY. Well, but look here you know--[he hesitates].
+
+JUGGINS. Yes, sir?
+
+KNOX. I know whatll clinch it, Gilbey. You leave it to me. [To Juggins]
+Was your mother the duchess?
+
+JUGGINS. Yes, sir. Quite correct, sir, I assure you. [To Mrs Gilbey]
+That is the milk, madam. [She has mistaken the jugs]. This is the water.
+
+_They stare at him in pitiable embarrassment._
+
+MRS KNOX. What did I tell you? Heres something out of the common
+happening with a servant; and we none of us know how to behave.
+
+JUGGINS. It's quite simple, madam. I'm a footman, and should be treated
+as a footman. [He proceeds calmly with his duties, handing round cups of
+tea as Mrs Knox fills them].
+
+_Shrieks of laughter from below stairs reach the ears of the company._
+
+MRS GILBEY. Whats that noise? Is Master Bobby at home? I heard his
+laugh.
+
+MRS KNOX. I'm sure I heard Margaret's.
+
+GILBEY. Not a bit of it. It was that woman.
+
+JUGGINS. I can explain, sir. I must ask you to excuse the liberty; but
+I'm entertaining a small party to tea in my pantry.
+
+MRS GILBEY. But youre not entertaining Master Bobby?
+
+JUGGINS. Yes, madam.
+
+GILBEY. Who's with him?
+
+JUGGINS. Miss Knox, sir.
+
+GILBEY. Miss Knox! Are you sure? Is there anyone else?
+
+JUGGINS. Only a French marine officer, sir, and--er--Miss Delaney. [He
+places Gilbey's tea on the table before him]. The lady that called about
+Master Bobby, sir.
+
+KNOX. Do you mean to say theyre having a party all to themselves
+downstairs, and we having a party up here and knowing nothing about it?
+
+JUGGINS. Yes, sir. I have to do a good deal of entertaining in the
+pantry for Master Bobby, sir.
+
+GILBEY. Well, this is a nice state of things!
+
+KNOX. Whats the meaning of it? What do they do it for?
+
+JUGGINS. To enjoy themselves, sir, I should think.
+
+MRS GILBEY. Enjoy themselves! Did ever anybody hear of such a thing?
+
+GILBEY. Knox's daughter shewn into my pantry!
+
+KNOX. Margaret mixing with a Frenchman and a footman-- [Suddenly
+realizing that the footman is offering him cake.] She doesnt know
+about--about His Grace, you know.
+
+MRS GILBEY. Perhaps she does. Does she, Mr Juggins?
+
+JUGGINS. The other lady suspects me, madam. They call me Rudolph, or the
+Long Lost Heir.
+
+MRS GILBEY. It's a much nicer name than Juggins. I think I'll call you
+by it, if you dont mind.
+
+JUGGINS. Not at all, madam.
+
+_Roars of merriment from below._
+
+GILBEY. Go and tell them to stop laughing. What right have they to make
+a noise like that?
+
+JUGGINS. I asked them not to laugh so loudly, sir. But the French
+gentleman always sets them off again.
+
+KNOX. Do you mean to tell me that my daughter laughs at a Frenchman's
+jokes?
+
+GILBEY. We all know what French jokes are.
+
+JUGGINS. Believe me: you do not, sir. The noise this afternoon has all
+been because the Frenchman said that the cat had whooping cough.
+
+MRS GILBEY. [laughing heartily] Well, I never!
+
+GILBEY. Dont be a fool, Maria. Look here, Knox: we cant let this go on.
+People cant be allowed to behave like this.
+
+KNOX. Just what I say.
+
+_A concertina adds its music to the revelry._
+
+MRS GILBEY. [excited] Thats the squiffer. Hes bought it for her.
+
+GILBEY. Well, of all the scandalous-- [Redoubled laughter from below].
+
+KNOX. I'll put a stop to this. [He goes out to the landing and shouts]
+Margaret! [Sudden dead silence]. Margaret, I say!
+
+MARGARET'S VOICE. Yes, father. Shall we all come up? We're dying to.
+
+KNOX. Come up and be ashamed of yourselves, behaving like wild Indians.
+
+DORA'S VOICE [screaming] Oh! oh! oh! Dont Bobby. Now--oh! [In headlong
+flight she dashes into and right across the room, breathless, and
+slightly abashed by the company]. I beg your pardon, Mrs Gilbey, for
+coming in like that; but whenever I go upstairs in front of Bobby, he
+pretends it's a cat biting my ankles; and I just must scream.
+
+_Bobby and Margaret enter rather more shyly, but evidently in high
+spirits. Bobby places himself near his father, on the hearthrug, and
+presently slips down into the arm-chair._
+
+MARGARET. How do you do, Mrs. Gilbey? [She posts herself behind her
+mother].
+
+_Duvallet comes in behaving himself perfectly. Knox follows._
+
+MARGARET. Oh--let me introduce. My friend Lieutenant Duvallet. Mrs
+Gilbey. Mr Gilbey. [Duvallet bows and sits down on Mr Knox's left,
+Juggins placing a chair for him].
+
+DORA. Now, Bobby: introduce me: theres a dear.
+
+BOBBY. [a little nervous about it; but trying to keep up his spirits]
+Miss Delaney: Mr and Mrs Knox. [Knox, as he resumes his seat,
+acknowledges the introduction suspiciously. Mrs Knox bows gravely,
+looking keenly at Dora and taking her measure without prejudice].
+
+DORA. Pleased to meet you. [Juggins places the baby rocking-chair for
+her on Mrs Gilbey's right, opposite Mrs Knox]. Thank you. [She sits
+and turns to Mrs Gilbey] Bobby's given me the squiffer. [To the company
+generally] Do you know what theyve been doing downstairs? [She goes off
+into ecstasies of mirth]. Youd never guess. Theyve been trying to teach
+me table manners. The Lieutenant and Rudolph say I'm a regular pig. I'm
+sure I never knew there was anything wrong with me. But live and learn
+[to Gilbey] eh, old dear?
+
+JUGGINS. Old dear is not correct, Miss Delaney. [He retires to the end
+of the sideboard nearest the door].
+
+DORA. Oh get out! I must call a man something. He doesnt mind: do you,
+Charlie?
+
+MRS GILBEY. His name isnt Charlie.
+
+DORA. Excuse me. I call everybody Charlie.
+
+JUGGINS. You mustnt.
+
+DORA. Oh, if I were to mind you, I should have to hold my tongue
+altogether; and then how sorry youd be! Lord, how I do run on! Dont mind
+me, Mrs Gilbey.
+
+KNOX. What I want to know is, whats to be the end of this? It's not
+for me to interfere between you and your son, Gilbey: he knows his own
+intentions best, no doubt, and perhaps has told them to you. But Ive
+my daughter to look after; and it's my duty as a parent to have a clear
+understanding about her. No good is ever done by beating about the bush.
+I ask Lieutenant--well, I dont speak French; and I cant pronounce the
+name--
+
+MARGARET. Mr Duvallet, father.
+
+KNOX. I ask Mr Doovalley what his intentions are.
+
+MARGARET. Oh father: how can you?
+
+DUVALLET. I'm afraid my knowledge of English is not enough to
+understand. Intentions? How?
+
+MARGARET. He wants to know will you marry me.
+
+ MRS GILBEY. |   What a thing to say!
+             |
+
+ KNOX.       |   Silence, miss.
+             |
+
+ DORA.       |   Well, thats straight, aint it?
+
+DUVALLET. But I am married already. I have two daughters.
+
+KNOX. [rising, virtuously indignant] You sit there after carrying on
+with my daughter, and tell me coolly youre married.
+
+MARGARET. Papa: you really must not tell people that they sit there. [He
+sits down again sulkily].
+
+DUVALLET. Pardon. Carrying on? What does that mean?
+
+MARGARET. It means--
+
+KNOX. [violently] Hold your tongue, you shameless young hussy. Dont you
+dare say what it means.
+
+DUVALLET. [shrugging his shoulders] What does it mean, Rudolph?
+
+MRS KNOX. If it's not proper for her to say, it's not proper for a man
+to say, either. Mr Doovalley: youre a married man with daughters. Would
+you let them go about with a stranger, as you are to us, without wanting
+to know whether he intended to behave honorably?
+
+DUVALLET. Ah, madam, my daughters are French girls. That is very
+different. It would not be correct for a French girl to go about alone
+and speak to men as English and American girls do. That is why I
+so immensely admire the English people. You are so free--so
+unprejudiced--your women are so brave and frank--their minds are so--how
+do you say?--wholesome. I intend to have my daughters educated in
+England. Nowhere else in the world but in England could I have met at
+a Variety Theatre a charming young lady of perfect respectability, and
+enjoyed a dance with her at a public dancing saloon. And where else are
+women trained to box and knock out the teeth of policemen as a protest
+against injustice and violence? [Rising, with immense elan] Your
+daughter, madam, is superb. Your country is a model to the rest of
+Europe. If you were a Frenchman, stifled with prudery, hypocrisy and
+the tyranny of the family and the home, you would understand how
+an enlightened Frenchman admires and envies your freedom, your
+broadmindedness, and the fact that home life can hardly be said to exist
+in England. You have made an end of the despotism of the parent; the
+family council is unknown to you; everywhere in these islands one can
+enjoy the exhilarating, the soul-liberating spectacle of men quarrelling
+with their brothers, defying their fathers, refusing to speak to their
+mothers. In France we are not men: we are only sons--grown-up children.
+Here one is a human being--an end in himself. Oh, Mrs Knox, if only your
+military genius were equal to your moral genius--if that conquest of
+Europe by France which inaugurated the new age after the Revolution had
+only been an English conquest, how much more enlightened the world would
+have been now! We, alas, can only fight. France is unconquerable. We
+impose our narrow ideas, our prejudices, our obsolete institutions,
+our insufferable pedantry on the world by brute force--by that stupid
+quality of military heroism which shews how little we have evolved from
+the savage: nay, from the beast. We can charge like bulls; we can spring
+on our foes like gamecocks; when we are overpowered by reason, we can
+die fighting like rats. And we are foolish enough to be proud of it! Why
+should we be? Does the bull progress? Can you civilize the gamecock? Is
+there any future for the rat? We cant even fight intelligently: when we
+lose battles, it is because we have not sense enough to know when we are
+beaten. At Waterloo, had we known when we were beaten, we should have
+retreated; tried another plan; and won the battle. But no: we were too
+pigheaded to admit that there is anything impossible to a Frenchman: we
+were quite satisfied when our Marshals had six horses shot under them,
+and our stupid old grognards died fighting rather than surrender
+like reasonable beings. Think of your great Wellington: think of his
+inspiring words, when the lady asked him whether British soldiers ever
+ran away. "All soldiers run away, madam," he said; "but if there are
+supports for them to fall back on it does not matter." Think of your
+illustrious Nelson, always beaten on land, always victorious at sea,
+where his men could not run away. You are not dazzled and misled by
+false ideals of patriotic enthusiasm: your honest and sensible statesmen
+demand for England a two-power standard, even a three-power standard,
+frankly admitting that it is wise to fight three to one: whilst we,
+fools and braggarts as we are, declare that every Frenchman is a host
+in himself, and that when one Frenchman attacks three Englishmen he is
+guilty of an act of cowardice comparable to that of the man who strikes
+a woman. It is folly: it is nonsense: a Frenchman is not really stronger
+than a German, than an Italian, even than an Englishman. Sir: if all
+Frenchwomen were like your daughter--if all Frenchmen had the good
+sense, the power of seeing things as they really are, the calm judgment,
+the open mind, the philosophic grasp, the foresight and true courage,
+which are so natural to you as an Englishman that you are hardly
+conscious of possessing them, France would become the greatest nation in
+the world.
+
+MARGARET. Three cheers for old England! [She shakes hands with him
+warmly].
+
+BOBBY. Hurra-a-ay! And so say all of us.
+
+_Duvallet, having responded to Margaret's handshake with enthusiasm,
+kisses Juggins on both cheeks, and sinks into his chair, wiping his
+perspiring brow._
+
+GILBEY. Well, this sort of talk is above me. Can you make anything out
+of it, Knox?
+
+KNOX. The long and short of it seems to be that he cant lawfully marry
+my daughter, as he ought after going to prison with her.
+
+DORA. I'm ready to marry Bobby, if that will be any satisfaction.
+
+GILBEY. No you dont. Not if I know it.
+
+MRS KNOX. He ought to, Mr Gilbey.
+
+GILBEY. Well, if thats your religion, Amelia Knox, I want no more of it.
+Would you invite them to your house if he married her?
+
+MRS KNOX. He ought to marry her whether or no.
+
+BOBBY. I feel I ought to, Mrs Knox.
+
+GILBEY. Hold your tongue. Mind your own business.
+
+BOBBY. [wildly] If I'm not let marry her, I'll do something downright
+disgraceful. I'll enlist as a soldier.
+
+JUGGINS. That is not a disgrace, sir.
+
+BOBBY. Not for you, perhaps. But youre only a footman. I'm a gentleman.
+
+MRS GILBEY. Dont dare to speak disrespectfully to Mr Rudolph, Bobby. For
+shame!
+
+JUGGINS. [coming forward to the middle of the table] It is not
+gentlemanly to regard the service of your country as disgraceful. It is
+gentlemanly to marry the lady you make love to.
+
+GILBEY. [aghast] My boy is to marry this woman and be a social outcast!
+
+JUGGINS. Your boy and Miss Delaney will be inexorably condemned by
+respectable society to spend the rest of their days in precisely the
+sort of company they seem to like best and be most at home in.
+
+KNOX. And my daughter? Whos to marry my daughter?
+
+JUGGINS. Your daughter, sir, will probably marry whoever she makes up
+her mind to marry. She is a lady of very determined character.
+
+KNOX. Yes: if he'd have her with her character gone. But who would?
+Youre the brother of a duke. Would--
+
+ BOBBY.      |   Whats that?
+             |
+ MARGARET.   |   Juggins a duke?
+             |
+ DUVALLET.   |   _Comment!_
+             |
+ DORA.       |   What did I tell you?
+
+KNOX. Yes: the brother of a duke: thats what he is. [To Juggins] Well,
+would you marry her?
+
+JUGGINS. I was about to propose that solution of your problem, Mr Knox.
+
+ MRS GILBEY. |   Well I never!
+             |
+ KNOX.       |   D'ye mean it?
+             |
+ MRS KNOX.   |   Marry Margaret!
+
+JUGGINS. [continuing] As an idle younger son, unable to support myself,
+or even to remain in the Guards in competition with the grandsons of
+American millionaires, I could not have aspired to Miss Knox's hand. But
+as a sober, honest, and industrious domestic servant, who has, I trust,
+given satisfaction to his employer [he bows to Mr Gilbey] I feel I am a
+man with a character. It is for Miss Knox to decide.
+
+MARGARET. I got into a frightful row once for admiring you, Rudolph.
+
+JUGGINS. I should have got into an equally frightful row myself, Miss,
+had I betrayed my admiration for you. I looked forward to those weekly
+dinners.
+
+MRS KNOX. But why did a gentleman like you stoop to be a footman?
+
+DORA. He stooped to conquer.
+
+MARGARET. Shut up, Dora: I want to hear.
+
+JUGGINS. I will explain; but only Mrs Knox will understand. I once
+insulted a servant--rashly; for he was a sincere Christian. He rebuked
+me for trifling with a girl of his own class. I told him to remember
+what he was, and to whom he was speaking. He said God would remember. I
+discharged him on the spot.
+
+GILBEY. Very properly.
+
+KNOX. What right had he to mention such a thing to you?
+
+MRS GILBEY. What are servants coming to?
+
+MRS KNOX. Did it come true, what he said?
+
+JUGGINS. It stuck like a poisoned arrow. It rankled for months. Then I
+gave in. I apprenticed myself to an old butler of ours who kept a hotel.
+He taught me my present business, and got me a place as footman with Mr
+Gilbey. If ever I meet that man again I shall be able to look him in the
+face.
+
+MRS KNOX. Margaret: it's not on account of the duke: dukes are vanities.
+But take my advice and take him.
+
+MARGARET. [slipping her arm through his] I have loved Juggins since the
+first day I beheld him. I felt instinctively he had been in the Guards.
+May he walk out with me, Mr Gilbey?
+
+KNOX. Dont be vulgar, girl. Remember your new position. [To Juggins] I
+suppose youre serious about this, Mr--Mr Rudolph?
+
+JUGGINS. I propose, with your permission, to begin keeping company this
+afternoon, if Mrs Gilbey can spare me.
+
+GILBEY. [in a gust of envy, to Bobby] Itll be long enough before youll
+marry the sister of a duke, you young good-for-nothing.
+
+DORA. Dont fret, old dear. Rudolph will teach me high-class manners. I
+call it quite a happy ending: dont you, lieutenant?
+
+DUVALLET. In France it would be impossible. But here--ah! [kissing his
+hand] la belle Angleterre!
+
+
+
+EPILOGUE
+
+_Before the curtain. The Count, dazed and agitated, hurries to the 4
+critics, as they rise, bored and weary, from their seats._
+
+THE COUNT. Gentlemen: do not speak to me. I implore you to withhold your
+opinion. I am not strong enough to bear it. I could never have believed
+it. Is this a play? Is this in any sense of the word, Art? Is it
+agreeable? Can it conceivably do good to any human being? Is it
+delicate? Do such people really exist? Excuse me, gentlemen: I speak
+from a wounded heart. There are private reasons for my discomposure.
+This play implies obscure, unjust, unkind reproaches and menaces to all
+of us who are parents.
+
+TROTTER. Pooh! you take it too seriously. After all, the thing has
+amusing passages. Dismiss the rest as impertinence.
+
+THE COUNT. Mr Trotter: it is easy for you to play the pococurantist.
+[Trotter, amazed, repeats the first three syllables in his throat,
+making a noise like a pheasant]. You see hundreds of plays every year.
+But to me, who have never seen anything of this kind before, the effect
+of this play is terribly disquieting. Sir: if it had been what people
+call an immoral play, I shouldnt have minded a bit. [Vaughan is
+shocked]. Love beautifies every romance and justifies every audacity.
+[Bannal assents gravely]. But there are reticences which everybody
+should respect. There are decencies too subtle to be put into words,
+without which human society would be unbearable. People could not
+talk to one another as those people talk. No child could speak to its
+parent--no girl could speak to a youth--no human creature could tear
+down the veils-- [Appealing to Vaughan, who is on his left flank, with
+Gunn between them] Could they, sir?
+
+VAUGHAN. Well, I dont see that.
+
+THE COUNT. You dont see it! dont feel it! [To Gunn] Sir: I appeal to
+you.
+
+GUNN. [with studied weariness] It seems to me the most ordinary sort of
+old-fashioned Ibsenite drivel.
+
+THE COUNT [turning to Trotter, who is on his right, between him and
+Bannal] Mr Trotter: will you tell me that you are not amazed, outraged,
+revolted, wounded in your deepest and holiest feelings by every word
+of this play, every tone, every implication; that you did not sit there
+shrinking in every fibre at the thought of what might come next?
+
+TROTTER. Not a bit. Any clever modern girl could turn out that kind of
+thing by the yard.
+
+THE COUNT. Then, sir, tomorrow I start for Venice, never to return. I
+must believe what you tell me. I perceive that you are not agitated,
+not surprised, not concerned; that my own horror (yes, gentlemen,
+horror--horror of the very soul) appears unaccountable to you,
+ludicrous, absurd, even to you, Mr Trotter, who are little younger than
+myself. Sir: if young people spoke to me like that, I should die of
+shame: I could not face it. I must go back. The world has passed me by
+and left me. Accept the apologies of an elderly and no doubt ridiculous
+admirer of the art of a bygone day, when there was still some beauty
+in the world and some delicate grace in family life. But I promised my
+daughter your opinion; and I must keep my word. Gentlemen: you are
+the choice and master spirits of this age: you walk through it without
+bewilderment and face its strange products without dismay. Pray deliver
+your verdict. Mr Bannal: you know that it is the custom at a Court
+Martial for the youngest officer present to deliver his judgment first;
+so that he may not be influenced by the authority of his elders. You are
+the youngest. What is your opinion of the play?
+
+BANNAL. Well, whos it by?
+
+THE COUNT. That is a secret for the present.
+
+BANNAL. You dont expect me to know what to say about a play when I dont
+know who the author is, do you?
+
+THE COUNT. Why not?
+
+BANNAL. Why not! Why not!! Suppose you had to write about a play by
+Pinero and one by Jones! Would you say exactly the same thing about
+them?
+
+THE COUNT. I presume not.
+
+BANNAL. Then how could you write about them until you knew which was
+Pinero and which was Jones? Besides, what sort of play is this? thats
+what I want to know. Is it a comedy or a tragedy? Is it a farce or
+a melodrama? Is it repertory theatre tosh, or really straight paying
+stuff?
+
+GUNN. Cant you tell from seeing it?
+
+BANNAL. I can see it all right enough; but how am I to know how to take
+it? Is it serious, or is it spoof? If the author knows what his play
+is, let him tell us what it is. If he doesnt, he cant complain if I dont
+know either. _I_'m not the author.
+
+THE COUNT. But is it a good play, Mr Bannal? Thats a simple question.
+
+BANNAL. Simple enough when you know. If it's by a good author, it's a
+good play, naturally. That stands to reason. Who is the author? Tell me
+that; and I'll place the play for you to a hair's breadth.
+
+THE COUNT. I'm sorry I'm not at liberty to divulge the author's name.
+The author desires that the play should be judged on its merits.
+
+BANNAL. But what merits can it have except the author's merits? Who
+would you say it's by, Gunn?
+
+GUNN. Well, who do you think? Here you have a rotten old-fashioned
+domestic melodrama acted by the usual stage puppets. The hero's a naval
+lieutenant. All melodramatic heroes are naval lieutenants. The heroine
+gets into trouble by defying the law (if she didnt get into trouble,
+thered be no drama) and plays for sympathy all the time as hard as she
+can. Her good old pious mother turns on her cruel father when hes going
+to put her out of the house, and says she'll go too. Then theres the
+comic relief: the comic shopkeeper, the comic shopkeeper's wife, the
+comic footman who turns out to be a duke in disguise, and the young
+scapegrace who gives the author his excuse for dragging in a fast young
+woman. All as old and stale as a fried fish shop on a winter morning.
+
+THE COUNT. But--
+
+GUNN [interrupting him] I know what youre going to say, Count. Youre
+going to say that the whole thing seems to you to be quite new and
+unusual and original. The naval lieutenant is a Frenchman who cracks up
+the English and runs down the French: the hackneyed old Shaw touch.
+The characters are second-rate middle class, instead of being dukes and
+millionaires. The heroine gets kicked through the mud: real mud. Theres
+no plot. All the old stage conventions and puppets without the old
+ingenuity and the old enjoyment. And a feeble air of intellectual
+pretentiousness kept up all through to persuade you that if the author
+hasnt written a good play it's because hes too clever to stoop to
+anything so commonplace. And you three experienced men have sat through
+all this, and cant tell me who wrote it! Why, the play bears the
+author's signature in every line.
+
+BANNAL. Who?
+
+GUNN. Granville Barker, of course. Why, old Gilbey is straight out of
+The Madras House.
+
+BANNAL. Poor old Barker!
+
+VAUGHAN. Utter nonsense! Cant you see the difference in style?
+
+BANNAL. No.
+
+VAUGHAN. [contemptuously] Do you know what style is?
+
+BANNAL. Well, I suppose youd call Trotter's uniform style. But it's not
+my style--since you ask me.
+
+VAUGHAN. To me it's perfectly plain who wrote that play. To begin with,
+it's intensely disagreeable. Therefore it's not by Barrie, in spite of
+the footman, who's cribbed from The Admirable Crichton. He was an earl,
+you may remember. You notice, too, the author's offensive habit of
+saying silly things that have no real sense in them when you come to
+examine them, just to set all the fools in the house giggling. Then what
+does it all come to? An attempt to expose the supposed hypocrisy of
+the Puritan middle class in England: people just as good as the author,
+anyhow. With, of course, the inevitable improper female: the Mrs
+Tanqueray, Iris, and so forth. Well, if you cant recognize the author of
+that, youve mistaken your professions: thats all I have to say.
+
+BANNAL. Why are you so down on Pinero? And what about that touch that
+Gunn spotted? the Frenchman's long speech. I believe it's Shaw.
+
+GUNN. Rubbish!
+
+VAUGHAN. Rot! You may put that idea out of your head, Bannal. Poor as
+this play is, theres the note of passion in it. You feel somehow that
+beneath all the assumed levity of that poor waif and stray, she really
+loves Bobby and will be a good wife to him. Now Ive repeatedly proved
+that Shaw is physiologically incapable of the note of passion.
+
+BANNAL. Yes, I know. Intellect without emotion. Thats right. I always
+say that myself. A giant brain, if you ask me; but no heart.
+
+GUNN. Oh, shut up, Bannal. This crude medieval psychology of heart
+and brain--Shakespear would have called it liver and wits--is really
+schoolboyish. Surely weve had enough of second-hand Schopenhauer. Even
+such a played-out old back number as Ibsen would have been ashamed of
+it. Heart and brain, indeed!
+
+VAUGHAN. You have neither one nor the other, Gunn. Youre decadent.
+
+GUNN. Decadent! How I love that early Victorian word!
+
+VAUGHAN. Well, at all events, you cant deny that the characters in this
+play were quite distinguishable from one another. That proves it's not
+by Shaw, because all Shaw's characters are himself: mere puppets stuck
+up to spout Shaw. It's only the actors that make them seem different.
+
+BANNAL. There can be no doubt of that: everybody knows it. But Shaw
+doesnt write his plays as plays. All he wants to do is to insult
+everybody all round and set us talking about him.
+
+TROTTER. [wearily] And naturally, here we are all talking about him. For
+heaven's sake, let us change the subject.
+
+VAUGHAN. Still, my articles about Shaw--
+
+GUNN. Oh, stow it, Vaughan. Drop it. What Ive always told you about Shaw
+is--
+
+BANNAL. There you go, Shaw, Shaw, Shaw! Do chuck it. If you want to know
+my opinion about Shaw--
+
+ TROTTER.    |   No, please, we dont.    |
+             |                           |
+ VAUGHAN.    |   Shut your head, Bannal. | [yelling]
+             |                           |
+ GUNN.       |   Oh, do drop it.         |
+
+_The deafened Count puts his fingers in his ears and flies from the
+centre of the group to its outskirts, behind Vaughan._
+
+BANNAL. [sulkily] Oh, very well. Sorry I spoke, I'm sure.
+
+ TROTTER.    |   Shaw--  |
+             |           | [beginning again
+ VAUGHAN.    |   Shaw--  | simultaneously]
+             |           |
+ GUNN.       |   Shaw--  |
+
+_They are cut short by the entry of Fanny through the curtains. She is
+almost in tears._
+
+FANNY. [coming between Trotter and Gunn] I'm so sorry, gentlemen. And it
+was such a success when I read it to the Cambridge Fabian Society!
+
+TROTTER. Miss O'Dowda: I was about to tell these gentlemen what I
+guessed before the curtain rose: that you are the author of the play.
+[General amazement and consternation].
+
+FANNY. And you all think it beastly. You hate it. You think I'm a
+conceited idiot, and that I shall never be able to write anything
+decent.
+
+_She is almost weeping. A wave of sympathy carries away the critics._
+
+VAUGHAN. No, no. Why, I was just saying that it must have been written
+by Pinero. Didnt I, Gunn?
+
+FANNY. [enormously flattered] Really?
+
+TROTTER. I thought Pinero was much too popular for the Cambridge Fabian
+Society.
+
+FANNY. Oh yes, of course; but still--Oh, did you really say that, Mr
+Vaughan?
+
+GUNN. I owe you an apology, Miss O'Dowda. I said it was by Barker.
+
+FANNY. [radiant] Granville Barker! Oh, you couldnt really have thought
+it so fine as that.
+
+BANNAL. _I_ said Bernard Shaw.
+
+FANNY. Oh, of course it would be a little like Bernard Shaw. The Fabian
+touch, you know.
+
+BANNAL. [coming to her encouragingly] A jolly good little play, Miss
+O'Dowda. Mind: I dont say it's like one of Shakespear's--Hamlet or The
+Lady of Lyons, you know--but still, a firstrate little bit of work. [He
+shakes her hand].
+
+GUNN. [following Bannal's example] I also, Miss O'Dowda. Capital.
+Charming. [He shakes hands].
+
+VAUGHAN [with maudlin solemnity] Only be true to yourself, Miss O'Dowda.
+Keep serious. Give up making silly jokes. Sustain the note of passion.
+And youll do great things.
+
+FANNY. You think I have a future?
+
+TROTTER. You have a past, Miss O'Dowda.
+
+FANNY. [looking apprehensively at her father] Sh-sh-sh!
+
+THE COUNT. A past! What do you mean, Mr Trotter?
+
+TROTTER. [to Fanny] You cant deceive me. That bit about the police was
+real. Youre a Suffraget, Miss O'Dowda. You were on that Deputation.
+
+THE COUNT. Fanny: is this true?
+
+FANNY. It is. I did a month with Lady Constance Lytton; and I'm prouder
+of it than I ever was of anything or ever shall be again.
+
+TROTTER. Is that any reason why you should stuff naughty plays down my
+throat?
+
+FANNY. Yes: itll teach you what it feels like to be forcibly fed.
+
+THE COUNT. She will never return to Venice. I feel now as I felt when
+the Campanile fell.
+
+_Savoyard comes in through the curtains._
+
+SAVOYARD. [to the Count] Would you mind coming to say a word of
+congratulation to the company? Theyre rather upset at having had no
+curtain call.
+
+THE COUNT. Certainly, certainly. I'm afraid Ive been rather remiss. Let
+us go on the stage, gentlemen.
+
+_The curtains are drawn, revealing the last scene of the play and the
+actors on the stage. The Count, Savoyard, the critics, and Fanny join
+them, shaking hands and congratulating._
+
+THE COUNT. Whatever we may think of the play, gentlemen, I'm sure you
+will agree with me that there can be only one opinion about the acting.
+
+THE CRITICS. Hear, hear! [They start the applause].
+
+
+AYOT ST. LAWRENCE, March 1911.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Fanny's First Play, by George Bernard Shaw
+
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