Adolphus Charles Troughton

“ Mr. Fastman!
FAST. (L.) Yes, my charmer, I am here! Don’t be afraid!
MRS. BOBBINS. (astonished) What do you mean, sir?
FAST. Come, come, don’t let there be any more of this prudery. I’m sure you’ll give me the preference—you wouldn’t make a comparison between a young fellow like me and such an old Guy Fawkes as Bobbins?
MRS. BOBBINS. How dare you, sir, speak of my husband in this disrespectful manner?
FAST. Your husband! Come, come, that’s a little too good, Constantia. I know all about that.
MRS. BOBBINS. Constantia! You impertinent young man!
FAST. Yes, Constantia—dear Constantia! ”

“ MRS. BROWN. Alas? Why, you ought to be delighted! (sadly) How fortunate Mrs. Bobbins is to be happy at home with her husband. Ah, how I envy her.
AUGUS. (delighted) Envy her! Mrs. Duval!
MRS. BROWN. I do, indeed, with all my heart.
AUGUS. (endeavouring to put his arm round her waist) Dear Mrs. Duval! Oh, these words—this tender confession!
MRS. BROWN. (retiring, L.) Why, Mr. Bobbins, are you taking leave of your senses? If you wish me to remain in this room, sir, you must restrain yourself within proper bounds.
AUGUS. Bounds, madam! There are no bounds to the emotions of the heart. ”

“ REBECCA. Lor, sir! why should you want to know? Missus has come home—she came home this morning.
FAST. No! you don’t say so! Where is she?
REBECCA. Where is she?—why, where should she be? In the next room, at breakfast with her husband, to be sure.
FAST. The deuce she is! Don’t talk so loud.
[Pg 4]
REBECCA. Why not? I’m not ashamed of what I’m saying.
FAST. Come home at last, then. Ah! (sighs) your mistress is a beautiful woman, Rebecca.
REBECCA. Beautiful?—that depends upon opinion; for my part, I don’t like tall women.
FAST. I admire tall women. ”

“ MRS. BOBBINS. Amusement! Do you think it’s any amusement to me to be worried out of my life with lawyers, and business I don’t understand? There’s a fresh difficulty now about a cousin abroad. If you were like other husbands, you would never suffer a young and pretty wife, more than twenty years your junior, to travel about alone.
AUGUS. Oh, my dear, I have a thorough confidence in you—there’s a rigidity of propriety about your deportment, that will always act as an efficient safeguard in the hour of danger. ”

“ MRS. BOBBINS. (to VANDYKE) Let me alone, sir! let me alone! Augustus, come to my assistance! Why do you suffer him to treat me like this?
(BOBBINS turns his back to her indignantly.)
VAN. It’s all fair! Exchange is no robbery! He takes my wife—I take his. You see your husband does not object.
AUGUS. Not I! As she has two husbands already, she may as well take a third. Clap hands and a bargain—I agree to the chop. (meets in centre and shake hands)
[Pg 26]
MRS. BOBBINS. (crying and crossing to L. C.) Oh, oh, Augustus! what, desert me after all my forbearance and exemplary conduct? ”

“ Very well, I’ll wait for him. (takes off morning gown, and throws it on table, R.)
REBECCA. Won’t you take your breakfast, sir? it’s all getting cold.
VAN. Don’t talk to me of breakfast! Stay! on second thoughts I don’t know! I must keep up my strength! Nourish my revenge! Not eat my breakfast! I’ll go into training like a prize fighter! eat raw beefsteaks every day for a month, and then come down upon him like the Gladiator! (striking the attitude) Or Alcides throwing Lychas into the sea! (attitude) Look out for yourself, Bobbins! ”

“ What do I care for your mahogany? Look here! D—n your mahogany! (throws down arm chair) D—n your mahogany!
(takes all the furniture in succession, chairs, table, R.—at last takes a bust from R. table, close to scene, and throws it out at back of folding doors—crash is heard, while BOBBINS is speaking.
AUGUS. Be quiet, I say. Let the furniture alone. You are mad—yes, you are gone out of your senses! Will you hear me?
VAN. (R.) No, I won’t! Mark me! I give you one quarter of an hour—one quarter of an hour to take your things away. ”

“ Clever creature! she can turn her hand to anything—Berlin wool, potichomania, crotchet, embroidery— By the way, I begin to suspect that name of hers, Duval, is only assumed—she doesn’t look to me at all like a Frenchwoman—and the only approach to anything in the shape of a husband I have been able to discover, is this morning gown, which I found one morning over a chair back in her room, and which, in a moment of pecuniary pressure, I induced her to sell me for about four times its value. ”

“ That rascally interloper, Bobbins.
REBECCA. The good for nothing old fellow!
FAST. You amaze me! It’s incredible!
VAN. If he attempt to expostulate—mind, this is your answer—I have the authority of her husband.
FAST. But my dear sir, suppose—
VAN. Now don’t suppose, Fastman—I can’t bear it. Remember that’s your answer—I have the authority of her husband. You shall revenge me! Cut him out, Fastman! Spit at him! kick him! pull his nose! while I go into training, in order that I may finish him! Spifflicate him! pulverise him! Don’t speak. (crosses to C.) You have your full instructions. ”

“ Hold him fast while I run over the way with the baby!
(BROWN rushes at BOBBINS, who closes the doors upon him, and exits—BROWN sinks into arm chair, L.—REBECCA quietly takes pistol from him and puts it on R. table)
VAN. Oh, Rebecca—that’s your name, isn’t it?
REBECCA. (R.) Oh, sir, sir, sir! what does all this mean? You’ll frighten us all out of our senses!
VAN. Oh, Rebecca, did you but know the atrocities that have been going on here!
REBECCA. What atrocities?
VAN. What atrocities! They’re not fit to be told to a respectable young woman like you. This is the very temple of wickedness. ”

“ My heart beats like one of the drums I left behind me, at the thought of meeting my wife again after the best part of a twelvemonth’s chequered absence in the Crimea—driven from my native land and the cultivation of the classic style of art, by the detestable envy of the Royal Academicians, the cupidity of the butcher, and the rapacity of the baker. ”

“ Straightlaced crosspatch; she’s more fit for an old maid, than a married woman.
AUGUS. (in chair, L.) Another victim to your implacable jealousy, Constantia.
MRS. BOBBINS. (R.) Jealous of you! ha, ha, ha! Really Augustus, you have a good opinion of yourself.
AUGUS. (offended, and rising) Jealous of me, yes to be sure, why not? You know you are; we can’t keep a servant in the place for it; we have been married scarcely three years, and this is the nineteenth you have discharged.
MRS. BOBBINS. Well, sir, and whose fault is that? A man without the slightest sense of common propriety! ”

“ AUGUS. What a singular woman Constantia is when she once takes an idea into her head. No human argument now would ever persuade her that I am not violently smitten with her own maid. Ridiculous notion! ha, ha! and the best of the joke is—for reasons of a strictly private nature, I rather encourage the idea—commit myself with Rebecca! No, no—I look a little higher than that! The interesting object of my secret intentions, is in no way beneath me—quite the reverse—she is above me by a flight of stairs. It is really quite distressing, to think so charming a woman as Mrs. ”

“ What the deuce! fresh paper—Brussels carpet—and all this French polished mahogany! Upon my word! why, my wife must have gone mad, or else she must be driving a rare trade in the Berlin wool and fancy line. Stay, here she comes! I’ll get under the table and give her a surprise. How delighted she’ll be to see me! (goes towards table, L.) No, it’s not my wife. Why, good gracious, she keeps an assistant, I’ll be bound.
Enter REBECCA, R. D.
REBECCA. (seeing him) Who is this?
VAN. Good morning, young woman. You are not a bad-looking girl.
REBECCA. (aside) He is mighty familiar. ”

“ If they are not gone as the clock strikes, out they go through the window.
AUGUS. Police! Police!
VAN. Oh! you want the whole thing to get into the papers, do you! To be all over the town! Very well, with all my heart! I’m your man! (seizing BOBBINS) Come along, to Bow Street! Come along, come along! (dragging him to C. D.)
Enter REBECCA, C. D. from L.
REBECCA. Please, sir, the nurse has brought home the baby!
[Pg 19]
VAN. (lets BOBBINS go—rushes into R. corner) The baby! (during this, REBECCA puts the furniture in its place) Miserable little wretch! I’ll destroy it on the spot! ”

“ Duval for you. Don’t forget the letter.
Exit FASTMAN, C. to R.
Enter MR. BOBBINS, R., in a dressing gown, followed by MRS. BOBBINS.
MRS. BOBBINS. Yes, Augustus! yes Mr. Bobbins, I repeat it, she shall not remain any longer!
AUGUS. But, my dear, this conduct of yours is downright oriental despotism; of all the tyrannies, there are none like the domestic.
MRS. BOBBINS. She shall go this very day! It’s most abominable! I’ll pay her wages and send her about her business!
REBECCA. (coming down, C.) Oh, very well, ma’am, just as you please about that! ”

“ MRS. BROWN. Not that I have any great affection for them either, for if it hadn’t been for poor Br— (recollecting herself) for reasons only interesting to myself, I should have given notice long ago.
AUGUS. For “poor” who, madam? You excite my curiosity. I trust there is no gentleman in the case? ”