John Kendrick Bangs

“ Bob!
Yardsley (with a convulsive gasp) . Bob? Jennie! You—er—you misun— (Jennie, with a smile of joy and an ecstatic glance at Yardsley, dances from the room to attend the door. Yardsley throws himself into a chair.) Well, I’ll be teetotally—Awh! It’s too dead easy proposing to somebody you don’t know you are proposing to. What a kettle of fish this is, to be sure! Oh, pshaw! that woman can’t be serious. She must know I didn’t mean it for her. But if she doesn’t, good Lord! what becomes of me? (Rises, and paces up and down the room nervously. After a moment he pauses before the glass.) ”

“ Barlow takes arm-chair and sits gazing ahead of him. Neither he nor Yardsley perceives the other. Jennie tiptoes to one side, and, tossing a kiss at Yardsley, retires.
Barlow. Now for it. I shall leave this house to-day the happiest or the most miserable man in creation, and I rather think the odds are in my favor. Why shouldn’t they be? Egad! I can very well understand how a woman could admire me. I admire myself, rather. I confess candidly that I do not consider myself half bad, and Dorothy has always seemed to feel that way herself. ”

“ How do men do it? I ought to buy a few good novels and select the sort of proposal I like; but not having a novel at hand, I must invent my own. How will it be? Something like this, I fancy. (The portières are parted, and Jennie, the maid, enters. Yardsley does not observe her entrance.) I’ll get down on my knees. A man on his knees is a pitiable object, and pity, they say, is akin to love. ”

“ Yardsley. Where would you prefer to have it, Mrs. Perkins?
Mrs. Perkins. Oh, I have no preference in the matter. Put it where you please.
Yardsley. Suppose you carry it up into the attic, Barlow.
Barlow. Certainly. I’ll be glad to if you’ll carry the soft pedal. I’m always afraid when I’m carrying pianos up-stairs of breaking the soft pedal or dropping a few octaves.
Yardsley. I guess we’d better put it over in this corner, where the audience won’t see it. If you are so careless that you can’t move a piano without losing its tone, we’d better not have it moved too far. Now, then. ”

“ Perkins. Oh dear, Miss Andrews, never. Mrs. Jarley awakens too many bitter memories in me. I was Mrs. Jarley once, and—
Yardsley. It must have been awful. If there is anything in life that could be more horrible than you, with your peculiar style of humor, trying to do Jarley, I—
Perkins. Oh, well, what’s the odds what we do? We’re only amateurs, anyhow. Yardsley can put on a pair of tight boots, and give us an impression of Irving, or perhaps an imitation of the Roman army at the battle of Philippi, and the audience wouldn’t care, as long as they had a good supper afterwards. ”

“ Bradley. That’s right; put everything off on your wife. What shirks some men are!
Yardsley. Now, then, Perkins, lend us your shoulder, and—one, two, three—push! Ah! She starts; she moves; she seems to feel the thrill of life along her keel. We must have gained an inch. Once more, now. My, but this is a heavy piano!
Bradley. Must be full of Wagnerian music. Why don’t you get a piano of lighter quality, Perkins? ”

“ Bradley. Wait a moment. We must take the bric-à-brac from the top of it before you touch it. If there are two incompatible things in this world, they are men and bric-à-brac.
Mrs. Perkins. You are so thoughtful, though I am sure that Mr. Yardsley would not break anything willingly.
Barlow. Nothing but the ten commandments.
Yardsley. They aren’t bric-à-brac; and I thank you, Mrs. Perkins, for your expression of confidence. I wouldn’t intentionally go into the house of another man and toss his Sevres up in the air, or throw his Royal Worcester down-stairs, except under very great provocation. ”

“ Do you suppose that even a villain in an amateur show would go to a ball with spiked shoes on?
Perkins (wearily) . But I still fail to see what is to spoil the rug. Does the villain set fire to the conservatory in this play, or does he assassinate the virtuous hero here and spill his gore on the floor?
Bradley. What a blood-and-thunder idea of the drama you have! Of course he doesn’t. There isn’t a death in the whole play, and it’s two hours long. One or two people in the audience may die while the play is going on, but people who haven’t strong constitutions shouldn’t attend amateur shows. ”

“ Why is it, I wonder, that men get so rattled when they’re head over heels in love, and want to ask the fair object of their affections to wed? I can’t see. Now I’m brave enough among men. I’m not afraid of anything that walks, except Dorothy Andrews, and generally I’m not afraid of her. ”

“ And the dining-room portières are wanted to cover up the fireplace?
Yardsley. Precisely. You have a managerial brain, Thaddeus. You can see at once what a dining-room portière is good for. If ever I am cast away on a desert island, with nothing but a dining-room portière for solace, I hope you’ll be along to take charge of it. In your hands its possibilities are absolutely unlimited. Get them for us, old man; and while you are about it, bring a stepladder. (Exit Perkins, dejectedly.) Now, Barlow, you and Bradley help me with this piano. ”

“ Bradley. Oh, it’s all right, I assure you, Mrs. Perkins. Perfectly right and proper. It’s merely part of the exercise, don’t you know. There’s a hail-fellow-well-metness about enthusiastic bicyclists, and Emma is intensely enthusiastic. It gives her a chance, you know, and Emma has always wanted a chance. Independence is a thing she’s been after ever since she got her freedom, and now, thanks to the wheel, she’s got it again, and even I must admit it’s harmless. ”

“ Bradley (calming down) . Well—I suppose it has some fascination.
Perkins (anxious to escape further lessons) . Oh, indeed, it’s a most exhilarating sensation: you seem to be flying like a bird over the high-ways. Try it, Ned. Go on, right away. You don’t know how that little ride I had braced me up.
Barlow (wish a laugh) . There! Hear that! There’s a man who’s ridden only eight inches in all his life—and he says he felt like a bird!
Perkins (aside) . Yes—like a spring chicken split open for broiling. Next time I ride a wheel it’ll be four wheels, with a horse fastened in front. ”

“ Perkins (meekly) . Yes—best going—they tell me.
Barlow. Can’t compare with the Alberta. Has a way of going to pieces like the “one-hoss shay”—eh, Bob?
Yardsley. Exactly—when you least expect it, too—though the Alberta isn’t much better. You get coasting on either of ’em, and half-way down, bang! the front wheel collapses, hind wheel flies up and hits you in the neck, handle-bar turns just in time to stab you in the chest; and there you are, miles from home, a physical, moral, bicycle wreck. But the Arena wheel is different. In fact, I may say that the only safe wheel is the Arena. ”

“ Yardsley. I don’t blame him. Seems to me a man of your intelligence ought to know better than to rehearse on a cable-car, anyhow, to say nothing of stepping on a man’s corns.
Barlow. Of course I apologized; but he was a persistent old codger, and demanded an explanation of my epithet.
Perkins. It’s a wonder he didn’t have you put off. A man doesn’t like to be insulted even if he does ride on the cable.
Barlow. Oh, I appeased him. I told him I was rehearsing. That I was an amateur actor.
Mrs. Perkins. And of course he was satisfied.
Barlow. Yes; at least I judge so. ”

“ Certainly, Thaddeus. You know we offered our parlor for the performance. The audience are to sit out in the hall.
Perkins. Oh—ah! Why, of course! Certainly! It had slipped my mind; and—ah—what else?
Bradley. Why, we’re here to-night to arrange the scene. Don’t tell us you didn’t know it. Bob Yardsley’s coming, and Barlow. Yardsley’s a great man for amateur dramatics; he bosses things so pleasantly that you don’t know you’re being ordered about like a slave. I believe he could persuade a man to hammer nails into his piano-case if he wanted it done, he’s so insinuatingly lovely about it all. ”

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

“ Mrs. Perkins. Oh, Thaddeus, do be serious!
Perkins. I was never more so, my dear. Poisoning one’s grandmother is no light crime.
Yardsley. Well, I’ve a notion that the whole thing is faked up. Henderson has an idea that he’s a little tin Booth, and just because I called him down the other night at our first rehearsal he’s mad. That’s the milk in the cocoanut, I think. He’s one of those fellows you can’t tell anything to, and when I kicked because he wore a white tie with a dinner coat, he got mad and said he was going to dress the part his own way or not at all. ”

“ Mrs. Perkins. It’s down in the laundry. You’re about as—
Perkins. Oh, is it? Laundry is a nice place for a desk. Plenty of starch handy to stiffen up a writer’s nerve, and scrubbing-boards galore to polish up his wits. And I suppose my papers are up in the attic?
Mrs. Perkins. No; they’re stowed away safely in the nursery. Now please don’t complain!
Perkins. Me? Complain? I never complain. I didn’t say a word when Yardsley had my Cruikshanks torn from their shelves and chucked into a clothes-basket and carried into the butler’s pantry, did I? ”

“ Perkins. Poor Emma—out for freedom, and lands in jail. What horrid things policemen are, to arrest a woman!
Bradley (indignantly) . Served her right! If women won’t obey the law they ought to be arrested, the same as men. If she wasn’t my wife, I’d like to see her sent up for ten years or even twenty years. Women have got no business—
Barlow. Don’t get mad, Brad. If you knew the fascination of the wheel you wouldn’t blame her a bit. ”

“ Wha—wha—what’s the matter with Jennie?
Dorothy. I only wish I knew. I—
Yardsley (aside) . I’m glad you don’t.
Barlow. What say?
Yardsley. I didn’t say anything. Why should I say anything? I haven’t anything to say. If people who had nothing to say would not insist upon talking, you’d be—
Dorothy. I heard the poor girl weeping down-stairs, and when I went to the dumbwaiter to ask her what was the matter, I heard—I heard a man’s voice.
Yardsley. Man’s voice?
Barlow. Man’s voice is what Miss Andrews said.
Dorothy. Yes; it was Hicks, our coachman, and he was dreadfully angry about something. ”

“ In fact, the other night in the Perkinses conservatory she seemed to be quite ready for a proposal. I’d have done it then and there if it hadn’t been for that confounded Bob Yardsley—
Yardsley (turning sharply about) . Eh? Somebody spoke my name. A man, too. Great heavens! I hope Jennie’s friend Hicks isn’t here. I don’t want to have a scene with Hicks. (Discovering Barlow.) Oh—ah—why—hullo, Barlow! You here?
Barlow (impatiently, aside) . Hang it! Yardsley’s here too! The man’s always turning up when he’s not wanted. (Aloud.) Ah! why, Bob, how are you? What’re you doing here? ”

“ Yardsley (dryly) . I suppose if the clock strikes ten you’ll seesaw the curtain up and down ten times, once for each stroke—eh?
Bradley (poking his head in at the door) . What’s the matter in here? Emma’s been waiting for her cue like a hundred-yards runner before the pistol.
Perkins. Oh, it’s the usual trouble with Yardsley. He wants me to chaperon the universe.
Yardsley. It’s the usual row with you. You never want to do anything straight. You seem to think that curtain’s an elevator, and you’re the boy—yanking it up and down at your pleasure, and—
Mrs. Perkins. ”

“ The greatest joy in life is to be found in arranging and rearranging a library, and I seem to be in for joy enough to kill. What time are the—these amateur Thespians coming?
Mrs. Perkins (looking at her watch) . They’re due now; it’s half-past four. (Sits down and opens play-book. Rehearses.) No, not for all the world would I do this thing, Lord Muddleton. There is no need to ask it of me. I am firm. I shall—
Perkins, Oh, let up, my dear! I’ve been getting that for breakfast, dinner, and tea for two weeks now, and I’m awfully tired of it. ”

“ Barlow. Yes, almost too fine to be shut up in-doors. Why aren’t you driving, or—or playing golf, or—ah—or being out-doors somewhere? You need exercise, old man; you look a little pale. (Aside.) I must get him away from here somehow. Deuced awkward having another fellow about when you mean to propose to a woman.
Yardsley. Oh, I’m well enough!
Barlow (solicitously) . You don’t look it—by Jove you don’t. (Suddenly inspired.) No, you don’t, Bob. You overestimate your strength. It’s very wrong to overestimate one’s strength. People—ah—people have died of it. ”

“ People don’t put wall-papers on their conservatories.
Perkins (sarcastically) . I’ll have the room repapered in sheet-glass. Or we might borrow a few hot-bed covers and hang them from the picture moulding, so that the place would look like a real greenhouse.
Yardsley. Napoleonic idea. Barlow, jot down among the properties ten hot-bed covers, twenty picture-hooks, and a coil of wire. You’re developing, Perkins.
Mrs. Perkins (ruefully, aside) . I wish Thaddeus’s jokes weren’t always taken seriously. The idea of my drawing-room walls being hung with hot-bed covers! Why, it’s awful. ”