LITMIR.BIZ

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      PROSERPINE. [Tartly, to Marchbanks.] Did you ever see worse manners, Mr. Marchbanks?

      BURGESS. [With pompous severity.] Mr. Morchbanks is a gentleman and knows his place, which is more than some people do.

      PROSERPINE. [Fretfully.] It’s well you and I are not ladies and gentlemen: I’d talk to you pretty straight if Mr. Marchbanks wasn’t here. [She pulls the letter out of the machine so crossly that it tears.] There, now I’ve spoiled this letter—have to be done all over again. Oh, I can’t contain myself—silly old fathead!

      BURGESS. [Rising, breathless with indignation.] Ho! I’m a silly ole fathead, am I? Ho, indeed. [Gasping.] Hall right, my gurl! Hall right. You just wait till I tell that to your employer. You’ll see. I’ll teach you: see if I don’t.

      PROSERPINE. I—

      BURGESS. [Cutting her short.] No, you’ve done it now. No huse a-talkin’ to me. I’ll let you know who I am. [Proserpine shifts her paper carriage with a defiant bang, and disdainfully goes on with her work.] Don’t you take no notice of her, Mr. Morchbanks. She’s beneath it. [He sits down again loftily.]

      MARCHBANKS. [Miserably nervous and disconcerted.] Hadn’t we better change the subject. I—I don’t think Miss Garnett meant anything.

      PROSERPINE. [With intense conviction.] Oh, didn’t I though, just!

      BURGESS. I wouldn’t demean myself to take notice on her. [An electric bell rings twice.]

      PROSERPINE. [Gathering up her note-book and papers.] That’s for me. [She hurries out.]

      BURGESS. [Calling after her.] Oh, we can spare you. [Somewhat relieved by the triumph of having the last word, and yet half inclined to try to improve on it, he looks after her for a moment; then subsides into his seat by Eugene, and addresses him very confidentially.] Now we’re alone, Mr. Morchbanks, let me give you a friendly ’int that I wouldn’t give to everybody. ’Ow long ’ave you known my son-in-law James here?

      MARCHBANKS. I don’t know. I never can remember dates. A few months, perhaps.

      BURGESS. Ever notice anything queer about him?

      MARCHBANKS. I don’t think so.

      BURGESS. [Impressively.] No more you wouldn’t. That’s the danger in it. Well, he’s mad.

      MARCHBANKS. Mad!

      BURGESS. Mad as a Morch ’are. You take notice on him and you’ll see.

      MARCHBANKS. [Beginning.] But surely that is only because his opinions—

      BURGESS. [Touching him with his forefinger on his knee, and pressing it as if to hold his attention with it.] That’s wot I used tee think, Mr. Morchbanks. Hi thought long enough that it was honly ’is hopinions; though, mind you, hopinions becomes vurry serious things when people takes to hactin on ’em as ’e does. But that’s not wot I go on. [He looks round to make sure that they are alone, and bends over to Eugene’s ear.] Wot do you think he says to me this mornin’ in this very room?

      MARCHBANKS. What?

      BURGESS. He sez to me—this is as sure as we’re settin’ here now—he sez: “I’m a fool,” he sez;—“and yore a scounderl”—as cool as possible. Me a scounderl, mind you! And then shook ’ands with me on it, as if it was to my credit! Do you mean to tell me that that man’s sane?

      MORELL. [Outside, calling to Proserpine, holding the door open.] Get all their names and addresses, Miss Garnett.

      PROSERPINE. [In the distance.] Yes, Mr. Morell. [Morell comes in, with the deputation’s documents in his hands.]

      BURGESS. [Aside to Marchbanks.] Yorr he is. Just you keep your heye on him and see. [Rising momentously.] I’m sorry, James, to ’ave to make a complaint to you. I don’t want to do it; but I feel I oughter, as a matter o’ right and duty.

      MORELL. What’s the matter?

      BURGESS. Mr. Morchbanks will bear me out: he was a witness. [Very solemnly.] Your young woman so far forgot herself as to call me a silly ole fat ’ead.

      MORELL. [Delighted—with tremendous heartiness.] Oh, now, isn’t that exactly like Prossy? She’s so frank: she can’t contain herself! Poor Prossy! Ha! Ha!

      BURGESS. [Trembling with rage.] And do you hexpec me to put up with it from the like of ’er?

      MORELL. Pooh, nonsense! you can’t take any notice of it. Never mind. [He goes to the cellaret and puts the papers into one of the drawers.]

      BURGESS. Oh, I don’t mind. I’m above it. But is it right?—that’s what I want to know. Is it right?

      MORELL. That’s a question for the Church, not for the laity. Has it done you any harm, that’s the question for you, eh? Of course, it hasn’t. Think no more of it. [He dismisses the subject by going to his place at the table and setting to work at his correspondence.]

      BURGESS. [Aside to Marchbanks.] What did I tell you? Mad as a ’atter. [He goes to the table and asks, with the sickly civility of a hungry man] When’s dinner, James?

      MORELL. Not for half an hour yet.

      BURGESS. [With plaintive resignation.] Gimme a nice book to read over the fire, will you, James: thur’s a good chap.

      MORELL. What sort of book? A good one?

      BURGESS. [With almost a yell of remonstrance.] Nah-oo! Summat pleasant, just to pass the time. [Morell takes an illustrated paper from the table and offers it. He accepts it humbly.] Thank yer, James. [He goes back to his easy chair at the fire, and sits there at his ease, reading.]

      MORELL. [As he writes.] Candida will come to entertain you presently. She has got rid of her pupil. She is filling the lamps.

      MARCHBANKS. [Starting up in the wildest consternation.] But that will soil her hands. I can’t bear that, Morell: it’s a shame. I’ll go and fill them. [He makes for the door.]

      MORELL. You’d better not. [Marchbanks stops irresolutely.] She’d only set you to clean my boots, to save me the trouble of doing it myself in the morning.

      BURGESS. [With grave disapproval.] Don’t you keep a servant now, James?

      MORELL. Yes; but she isn’t a slave; and the house looks as if I kept three. That means that everyone has to lend a hand. It’s not a bad plan: Prossy and I can talk business after breakfast whilst we’re washing up. Washing up’s no trouble when there are two people to do it.

      MARCHBANKS. [Tormentedly.] Do you think every woman is as coarse-grained as Miss Garnett?

      BURGESS. [Emphatically.] That’s quite right, Mr. Morchbanks. That’s quite right. She IS corse-grained.

      MORELL. [Quietly and significantly.] Marchbanks!

      MARCHBANKS. Yes.

      MORELL. How many servants does your father keep?

      MARCHBANKS. Oh, I don’t know. [He comes back uneasily to the sofa, as if to get as far as possible from Morell’s questioning, and sits down in great agony of mind, thinking of the paraffin.]

      MORELL. [Very gravely.] So many that you don’t know. [More aggressively.] Anyhow, when there’s anything coarse-grained to be done, you ring the bell and throw it on to somebody else, eh? That’s one of the great facts in your existence, isn’t it?

      MARCHBANKS. Oh, don’t torture me. The one great fact now is that your wife’s beautiful fingers are dabbling in paraffin oil, and that you are sitting here comfortably preaching about it—everlasting preaching, preaching, words, words, words.

      BURGESS. [Intensely appreciating this retort.] Ha, ha! Devil a better. [Radiantly.] ’Ad you there, James, straight. [Candida comes in, well aproned, with a reading lamp trimmed, filled, and ready for lighting. She places it on the table near Morell, ready for use.]

      CANDIDA. [Brushing her finger tips together

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