Richard Ganthony

“ Horace. You can’t make me responsible for that dirty tramp’s condition.
Messenger. You might have saved him. You would have been blessed a thousandfold if you had.
Horace. How do you mean?
Messenger. In what a hideous Pretence you live. There, before you, stood a man of genius. You drove him out to die. An Inventor perishing in the hey-day of Invention-Worship.
Horace. Do you really think that fellow’s ideas are good for anything?
Messenger. You a man of science! You know nothing at all. There is more in his little finger than your whole body. ”

“ Messenger. Continue your divisions,—some do the fun-making and some do the grieving, some do the feasting and some the fasting. You, Prince of Duncedom, go gather rainbows, photograph a sunset, make a dyke of sponge, a castle on quicksand, a pillar of jelly. It were as wise as to build a Society on Self. That is a cement of gunpowder which dries in time and, gathering force, shatters a continent. In all your heart-breaking history but one order has been founded upon Love. ”

“ Messenger. What right have you to stand in the way of this young man who gives love for love? You don’t love her.
Horace. I think I do.
Messenger. He knows he does.
Horace. Minnie knows I do, but she doesn’t want to be reminded of it every minute or two.
Messenger. A great mistake. Women don’t like to be taken for granted. Listen!
Dicey. What could he ever be to you? Certainly no companion for life. He? He is only fit to be a bit of furniture in a library, while you are all life and sunshine. Minnie, you know I love you. ”

“ Horace. Oh, I see how it is. You have been reading our newspapers. They blackguard everything, themselves included. But now, Marsy, you must allow there has been a tremendous plunge ahead in the last hundred years.
Messenger. None! A great hubbub of Invention has been made, but what of Otherdom? A terrific rush to the standard of Mammon. “Arm! arm!” is the cry, “for the great Battle of Buy and Sell.” Invention echoes, “here are swords for all and any—good or bad, right or wrong, no question.” [45] False foods, false drinks, false houses, false public service. Invent! Invent! ”

“ Messenger. No. Your lesson is only just beginning. Have you forgotten Minnie?
Horace. Forgotten her? Rather not! Dear little girl! She is awfully gone on me.
Messenger. Hush, hush! She is one whom it pains to see a fault in you. Love, the elementary Otherdom, possesses her. A divine gift of madness set in opposition to the cold logic of Self. She did love you——
Horace. Did? She does, and don’t you make any mistake about it!
Messenger. Listen a while. (Waves his hand and the interior of house lights up and discovers Minnie and Dicey chatting.)
Dicey. This is our dance, I think. ”

“ Messenger. Never mind, you said you were going to buy her a thimble to-morrow. What’s a diamond ring to a thimble?
Horace. I meant a present. I didn’t particularize so, I simply called it a thimble. But I’ll buy her a star to-morrow—an enormous star of diamonds. I’ll make Mr. Dicey sit up!
Messenger. So like a man. He thinks if the diamonds are bigger that will settle the whole thing.
Horace. Of course it is unnecessary. Minnie would not marry a brainless idiot like Dicey. Aunt Martha would see to that. After all, Aunt Martha is a sensible woman. ”

“ I believed in you, Horace, though I was never blind to your faults. I [22] had hoped I might help you to conquer them, but I realize now the task is beyond me. A stronger spirit would have to be invoked. Without your love I should fail, and I see now you have none to offer me. The devotion of your life is for yourself and yourself alone.
Horace. And all this fuss because I don’t want you to go with a silly ass to a dance to-night.
Minnie. No. For your utter lack of consideration. I might hurt my dear friend, Kitty Clarence, by not going to her dance. ”

“ Horace. (Minnie takes his left hand) Minnie!
Minnie. Love and science don’t seem to agree.
Horace. Oh, yes, they do. But you don’t understand. I love you in a scientific way.
Minnie. I think I like the old way best. But I suppose I am silly and narrow minded like Aunt Martha. (Kisses him.) There, we won’t say any more about it. Are you comfortable?
Horace. No, not at all. You might get another pillow.
Minnie. (Does so.) Shall I put you out the whiskey?
Horace. Um—yes—you may as well. (Minnie gets whiskey from table L. and two syphons and jar of biscuits. Aside) Dear little girl. ”

“ Horace. Yes.
(Footman opens door and Aunt and Bella come out, followed by Dicey and Minnie.)
Tramp. Going away. Come on, let’s call a cab.
Horace. No good, they’ve got their own car.
Aunt. Oh, how thick the snow is.
Dicey. Don’t slip, Minnie.
Tramp. Minnie! Look! There’s my Minnie! My darling little Minnie!
Horace. Where?
Tramp. There in the doorway, with that swell! It’s my Minnie! I’ll swear to it! The living image of her mother! I’m going to speak to her.
Horace. (Holding him back) No, no, man. Think how you will disgrace her.
Tramp. Disgrace her? Why, she will be proud of her father. ”

“ Horace. It is just what I told you. It’s the other people who are selfish, not I. Why don’t you take Mrs. Clarence in hand? She’s a beauty, if you like.
Messenger. Compared to you, she is an angel.
Minnie. Poor Horace, I am sorry for him! What will he do?
Horace. There’s Minnie! She’s true—she’s true, after all!
[51]
Aunt. What will he do? Well, I suppose he will have to work, like anyone else.
Minnie. But he can’t, poor boy, he doesn’t know anything.
Horace. Doesn’t know anything? What does she mean?
Mrs. Clarence. There are plenty of fools who manage to earn their own living. ”

“ He put the shoe business on its feet, won the heart of the girl clerk, saved her erring brother from jail, escaped that place as a permanent boarding house himself, and foiled the villain.
Clean, wholesome comedy with just a touch of human nature, just a dash of excitement and more than a little bit of true philosophy make “In Walked Jimmy” one of the most delightful of plays. Jimmy is full of the religion of life, the religion of happiness and the religion of helpfulness, and he so permeates the atmosphere with his “religion” that everyone is happy. ”

“ Clarence’s! In full swing.
Messenger. I have brought you here where you [35] refused to come to-night to give you your first lesson in Otherdom.
Horace. What’s that? Otherdom, you say? (Interior again dark.)
Messenger. You do not understand? It is characteristic of your race that while all that is vile and ignoble is well expressed by your word “Selfishness,” your language does not supply its opposite. In Mars we have a word which means the abandonment of self and the striving for others. It is the great essential virtue, Otherdom. ”

“ Messenger. Have you ever done anything for others?
Horace. Permit me a word. You have advanced not a single argument why my conduct should be deemed reprehensible. We are quite well aware of our duty to each other, but in our highly organized society to-day we employ the important principle of the Division of Labor. Some attend to Charities, others to Science, others again to Production or Distribution, and so on and so on. ”

“ Women are all alike. No liberality, no generosity. You think you have found an exception, you pour out all the wealth of your priceless love upon her, and the moment the shoe pinches—there you are. I suppose she will want to make it up to-morrow, then I shall have to put down my foot and come to a thorough understanding. Confound that fellow Dicey! ”

“ Show him in here, Bella.
(Exit Bella R.)
Horace. Well, who is my blessed preserver?
Aunt. Mr. Dicey.
Horace. What, Arthur Dicey? That Stock Exchange fellow?
Aunt. A charming young man.
Horace. A brainless idiot!
Aunt. A perfect gentleman, and besides, I hear he is enormously rich.
Minnie. How kind and thoughtful of him! He always seems to be doing the right thing just at the right moment.
Horace. Minnie, I don’t at all care that you should go with this fellow to-night. He is not at all the kind of man I wish you to be seen going about with.
Minnie. He is always so attentive. ”

“ Messenger. Have you ever said it?
Horace. Of course not. I have been worthy of her all the time.
Dicey. Your happiness would be everything to me.
Minnie. I think you mean what you say.
Horace. He doesn’t! The beast!
Dicey. Now for a small confession. Ever so long ago I bought a ring, in hope, or, perhaps, in [40] despair. Whenever my chances seemed most faint, fortune most forbidding, I used to take it out of my pocket and look at it.
Horace. Silly ass! Can you imagine a more deplorable waste of time? Whenever a man is down on his luck to take out a ring and look at it? Oh, dear, oh, dear! ”

“ Horace. Fire! (Then he checks himself.) Hope nobody heard me. My nerves are all on edge. I wish old Marsy would tell me whether that inventive vagabond got over his troubles or peacefully expired in the snow. Poor devil! I almost wish I could meet him again. We call such fellows riff-raff, rabble, but, if the truth were told, might not some of us be found to be the real loafers in the snug corners of Easy Street, of little good to anyone, cumbering up the way till that old patrolman, Death, steps up and bids us “Move on”? ”

“ An old couple, woman wearing a gray overcoat of Horace’s; a girl wearing Horace’s mackintosh over nightclothes; she leads a boy in knee pants, no stockings, and one shoe on; a little girl carrying a baby. She tries to get to fire, but is blocked off by others, so dives under the table with her charge. Others, men and women, may be added, one wearing another of Horace’s overcoats. Then comes in Horace and the Tramp, carrying an unconscious youth whom they place on the sofa C. Bella also comes in, looking rather bewildered. ”

“ Other people are so mean, and selfish, and unfair. (Sits in armchair.) Now let me get on with it. (Reads “Astronomer.”) Where was I? Ah, yes, here we are. (Reads.) “Latest observations have revealed strange lights which some astronomers believe to be signals put out in the hope of an answer from Earth.” I don’t believe a word of it. It may be possible, though. If Mars is inhabited, I wonder what they are like. Are they savages, or are they ahead of us? (Lamp flickers a little.) Confound it! The lamp’s going out. Minnie never told her. ”

“ Forgets all about a poor fellow left alone in the dark. Most selfish of her. (Turns over page and reads by firelight as lamp fails more and more.) Ah, just the end. (Reads.) “The advent of a messenger or an army from Mars should not seem to us of the twentieth century a greater marvel than did the shining sails of Columbus to the aborigines of America. What an unfolding of wisdom would their coming yield. What problems could they solve, what new ones [28] set us. The mind fails in contemplation. Too vast—vast.” (Lamp goes out. Horace falls asleep. Enter A Messenger from Mars.) ”

“ Horace. It can only be because we never realize how the poor live. In the wise days of old, when men were nearer nature, fast days were instituted, that the Fat might remember the Lean. Now our Fasts are feasts. I wonder what a bonafide all-round forty-eight hour starve, once a year even, would do for our rich friends. ”

“ You are a beggar in rags!
[55]
(Horace’s coat, scarf and hat are torn from him, and he appears as a ragged loafer.)
Horace. (Looking down at himself in despair) I am! I am!
Messenger. And hungry.
Horace. Ravenous!
(Horace leans back against the railings of the house, a most forlorn object. After a pause, enter slowly from R. the Tramp. Tramp spies Horace and sidles up to him, and takes up a similar pose by his side. Nothing said for a little, but they examine each other.)
Tramp. Know anything?
Horace. Nothing. I’m hungry. Are you? ”

“ Clarence.)
Horace. Must I listen to all this twaddle?
Messenger. Your intimates don’t appear to think very highly of you.
Horace. I don’t care two straws for their opinion.
[42]
Messenger. Don’t you value the praise of your fellow men?
Horace. My fellow men—oh, yes. But not such creatures as these. Men of the world, men of business, hard-headed men of science. Take their opinions. I venture to say they will speak of me with respect and very possibly with admiration.
(Dicey has brought Minnie back and left her with Aunt Martha, he retiring. He shows elation as he bows.) ”

“ Up of fire is small stand. Below is a chair. A table in front of fire with armchair between it and fire. Another chair L. of table. A large standing oil lamp near table R. with red shade. This should have a greenish figure on a classical style, represented as holding or steadying the lamp standard. This figure is supposed to become the Messenger from Mars in the dream, only enlarged. The figure can, however, be omitted.
At Rise: Enter Bella R. Lights lamp or turns it up. Draws curtains. Attends to fire, and exits L. Enter Minnie Templar, dressed for a ball, followed by Aunt Martha R.
Minnie. ”