The Project Gutenberg eBook of Plays Of Near & Far, by Lord Dunsany.

The Gods of Pegana
Time and the Gods
The Sword of Welleran
A Dreamer's Tales
The Book of Wonder
Five Plays
Fifty-one Tales
Tales of Wonder
Plays of Gods and Men
Tales of War
Unhappy Far-off Things
Tales of Three Hemispheres
If
The Chronicles of Rodriguez

PREFACE

Believing plays to be solely for the stage, I have never before allowed any of mine to be printed until they had first faced from a stage the judgment of an audience, to see if they were entitled to be called plays at all. A successful production also has been sometimes a moral support to me when some critic has said, as for instance of "A Night at an Inn," that though it reads passably it could never act.

But in this book I have made an exception to this good rule (as it seems to me), and that exception is "The Flight of the Queen." I know too little of managers and theatres to know what to do with it, and have a feeling that it will be long before it is ever acted, and am too fond of this play to leave it in obscurity. This beautiful story has been lying about the world for countless centuries, without ever having been dramatized. It is the story of a royal court, which I have merely adapted to the stage. The date that I have given is accurate; it happened in June; and happens every June; perhaps in some corner of the reader's garden. It is the story of the bees.

As for "The Compromise of the King of the Golden Isles," it is just the sort of play through which those that hunt for allegories might hunt merrily, unless I mention that there are no allegories in any of my plays.

An allegory I take to be a dig at something local and limited, such as politics, while outwardly appearing to tell of things on some higher plane. But, far from being the chef d'œuvre of some ponderously profound thinker, I look on the allegory, if I have rightly defined it, as being the one form of art that is narrowly limited in its application to life. When the man whose cause it championed has been elected alderman, when the esplanade has been widened, or the town better lighted or drained, the allegory's work must necessarily be over; but the truth of all other works of art is manifold and should be eternal.

Though there is no such land as the Golden Isles and was never any such king as Hamaran, yet all that we write with sincerity is true, for we can reflect nothing that we have not seen, and this we interpret with our idiosyncracies when we attempt any form of art.

I set some store by the way in which the three lines about Zarabardes are recited, though it is hard to explain in writing a matter of rhythm. But the heartlessness of it can be indicated by a clear pronunciation of the syllables, as though the people that utter these words had long been drilled in a formula.

The third play, "Cheezo," tells of one of those rare occasions when it is permissible for an artist, and may be a duty, to leave his wider art in order to attack a definite evil. And the invention of "great new foods" is often a huge evil.

"Cheezo" is a play of Right and Wrong, and Wrong triumphs. Were not this particular Wrong triumphing at this particular date I should not have thought it a duty to attack it, and were it easily defeated it would not have been worth attacking.

I have seen it acted with a Stage Curate, rather weak and a little comic; obviously such a man could be no match for Sladder. Hippanthigh should be of stronger stuff than that: he is defeated because that particular evil is, as I have said, defeating its enemies at present. Nor could there be any drama in a contest between the brutal Sladder and a Stage Curate; for the spark that we call humour, by whose light we see much of life, comes as it were of two flints, and not of a flint and cheese.

The three little plays that follow I will leave to speak for themselves, as ultimately all plays have to do.

THE COMPROMISE OF THE KING OF THE GOLDEN ISLES

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ

The King of the Golden Isles: King Hamaran .
The King's Politician .
The Ambassador of the Emperor .
The Emperor's Seeker .
Two Priests of the Order of the Sun .
The King's Questioners .
The Ambassador's Nubian .
The Herald of the Ambassador .
The Emperor's Dwarf .
The Deputy Cup-Bearer .
The King's Doom-Bearer .

The King's Politician : A man has fled from the Emperor, and has taken refuge in your Majesty's Court in that part of it called holy.

Politician : To-day a spearsman came running from Eng-Bathai seeking the man who fled. He carries the barbed spear of one of the Emperor's seekers.

Politician : Moreover he has an edict from the Emperor demanding that the head of the man who fled be sent back to Eng-Bathai.

Politician : Yet your Majesty is no vassal of the Emperor, who dwells at Eng-Bathai.

Politician : It is so long since any dared to do it that the Emperor mocks at kings. If your Majesty disobeyed him the Emperor would tremble.

Politician : The Emperor would say, "There is a great king. He defies me." And he would tremble strangely.

King : Yet is the Emperor terrible in his wrath. He was terrible in his wrath in the olden time.

King : This is a great affront that he places upon a king, to demand a man who has come to sanctuary in that part of my Court called holy.

Seeker : O King, I have come with my spear, seeking for one that fled the Emperor and has found sanctuary in your Court in that part called holy.

King : It has not been the wont of the kings of my line to turn men from our sanctuary.

King : Hark. I will not disobey the Emperor. Yet will I not permit him to abuse the sanctuary of my Court. We will banish the man who fled from Eng-Bathai. [ To his Doom-Bearer .] Hither, the Doom-Bearer; take the black ivory spear, the wand of banishment, that lies on the left of my throne, and point it at the man that shelters in the holy place of my Court. Then show him the privy door behind the horns of the altar, so that he go safely hence and meet not the Emperor's seeker.

[ The Doom-Bearer bows and takes the spear on the flat of both his hands. The shaft is all black, but the head is of white ivory. It is blunt and clearly ceremonial. Exit. ]

Thus we shall be safe from the wrath of the Emperor, and the holy place of my Court will not be violate.

Politician : Had your Majesty scorned the Emperor it were better. He is old and durst not take vengeance.

King : For what purpose to my Court from Eng-Bathai comes thus the Ambassador of the Emperor?

Ambassador : I bring to the King's Majesty a gift from the great Emperor, [ Ambassador and his men bow ] who reigns in Eng-Bathai, the reward of obedience to his edict, a goblet of inestimable wine.

[ He signs and there enters a page bearing a goblet of glass. He has a pretty complexion and yellow hair falling as low as his chin and curling inwards. He wears a cerise belt round his tunic exactly matching the wine in the goblet he carries.

He prays you drink it, and to know that it was made by vintners whose skill is lost, and stored in secret cellars over a hundred years; and that the vineyards whence it came have been long since whelmed by war, and only live now in legend and this wine.

Ambassador : If that be so the Emperor bids you drink out of this golden goblet. [ He signs and it is brought on by a bent and ugly dwarf ] and wishes you farewell.

Ambassador : It is no common poison, but a thing so strange and deadly that the serpents of Lebutharna go in fear of it. Yea travellers there hold high a goblet of this poison, at arm's length as they go. The serpents hide their heads for fear of it. Even so the travellers pass the desert safely, and come to Eng-Bathai.

[ He throws the liquid out of the goblet through the doorway on to the marble. A great steam goes up.

Ambassador : The Emperor therefore bids you choose the gift that he honours himself by sending to your Court.

[ The huge Nubian moves up close to the King holding up the two cups on a tray.

Ambassador : Only one craftsman in the City of Smiths ever discerned a difference. The Emperor killed him, and now no one knows.

Ambassador : Strangely alike. [ The King hesitates. ] The Emperor bids you choose his gift and drink.

Ambassador : There are tortures that the Emperor never names. They are not spoken of where the Emperor is. Yet the Emperor makes a sign and they are accomplished. He makes the sign with a certain one of his fingers.

Ambassador : One is a wine scarcely less rare, scarcely less jubilant in the wits of man, than that which alas is lost.

Ambassador : Who may say? It is the most treasured secret that the Emperor's poisoners guard.

King : I will send for my butlers that are wise in wine and they shall smell the cups.

Ambassador : Alas, but the Emperor's poisoners have added so wine-like a flavour to their most secret draught, that no man may tell by this means which is their work and which that inestimable wine.

Ambassador : If they chanced to taste of the treasure of the Emperor's poisoners—well. But if they, or any man of common birth, were to taste of the wine that the Emperor sends only to kings, and even to kings but rarely, that were an affront to the Emperor's ancient wine that could not be permitted.

King : It is surely permitted that I send for my priests, who tell by divination, having burnt strange herbs to the gods that guard the Golden Isles.

King ( mainly to himself ): They shall discern. The priests shall make for me this dreadful choice. They shall burn herbs and discern it. ( To Ambassador .) My priests are very subtle. They worship the gods that guard the Golden Isles.

[ Enter L. two priests of the Order of the Sun. Two acolytes follow. One carries a tripod and the other a gong.

[ The priests abase themselves and the acolytes bow. The Ambassador stands with almost Mongolian calm by the door from which he has not moved since he entered.

[ The impassive Nubian stands motionless near the King , holding up the cups on a tray.

King : The Emperor has honoured me with these two cups of wine that I may drink one of them to the grandeur of his throne. I bid you importune the gods that they may surely tell me which it were well to drink.

First Priest : We will importune the gods with the savour of rarest spices. We will send up to them the odour of herbs they love. We will commune with them in silence and they shall answer our thoughts, when they snuff the savour of the smoke of the burning on the tripod that is sacred to the Sun.

[ The calm of the Ambassador and the impassivity of the Nubian grow ominous. The two priests hang over the tripod. They cast herbs upon it. They pass their hands over it. The herbs begin to smoulder. A smoke goes up. The priests bend over the smoke. Presently they step back from it.

King : Importune them as never before. I will make sacrifice of many sheep. I will give emeralds to the Monks of the Sun.

[ The second acolyte moves nearer to the tripod and beats listlessly on his great gong at about the pace of a great clock striking slowly.

[ They heap up more herbs and spices. The smoke grows thicker and thicker. It streams upwards. They hover about it as before. At a sign the gong ceases.

[ He seizes the cup boldly. He looks straight at the Ambassador , whose face remains expressionless, merely watching. He lifts the cup upon the Nubian's left a little up from the tray.

[ Suddenly he starts. He has seen a strange expression upon the face of the priest. He puts the cup down. He strides a step nearer and looks at his face.

[ The King steps back to his place in the front of his throne where the Nubian stands beside him. He takes the cup upon the Nubian's right. He gazes at the priest. He looks round at the Ambassador, but sees nothing in that watchful, expressionless face.

[ He glances sidelong at the priest, then drinks, draining the cup at some length. He puts it down in silence. The face of the Ambassador and the whole bulk of the Nubian remain motionless.

[ The Questioners run nimbly up to the two priests and lead them away by the arm.

Ambassador : I go back to the Emperor, whom it is happiness to obey, and length of days.

[ He bows and walks away. The Herald marches out, then the Ambassador ; the Page , the Dwarf and the Nubian follow.

[ The Herald is heard blowing upon his trumpet the same notes as when he entered, one merry bar of music.

[ The tray and two precious cups, one empty and the other full, are left glittering near the King .

King ( looking at cups ): Those are rare emeralds that glisten there! Yet an evil gift. ( To the moaning acolytes. ) Be silent! Your priests sinned strangely.

[ Enter one of the Questioners . He has sweat on his face and his hair has become damp and unkempt.

King : They would have made me drink of a poisoned cup. I say there is poison in that cup. Your priests would have had me drink it. ( The acolytes only answer by moans. ) Bid them confess. Bid them confess their crime and why it was done, and the Supreme Question shall be spared them. ( The acolytes only answer by moans. ) Strange! They have done strangely. ( To acolytes. ) Why has your priest spoken falsely? ( The acolytes only moan. ) Why has he spoken falsely in the name of the gods? ( The acolytes moan on. ) Be silent! Be silent! May I not question whom I will? ( To himself ). They prophesied falsely in the name of the gods.

First Questioner : They spoke at last, but they would not answer the question. They would not confess.

First Questioner : The man you gave to me, O King, said: "No man that knew the counsels of the gods, who alone see future things, would say the gods advised King Hamaran ill when they bade him drink out of a poisoned cup." Then I put the question straightly and he died.

First Questioner : In different chambers, O King. I questioned mine in the Red Chamber.

[ The acolytes are crouched upon the floor. He does not notice them since they ceased to moan.

Well, I will face it! But what is it? Is it one of those things a strong man can bear? Or is it——?

No man, he said, could say that the gods had advised me ill when they bade me drink out of a poisoned cup.

What have the gods seen? What dreadful work have they overlooked where Destiny sits alone, making evil years? The gods, he said, who alone see future things.

Yes, I have known men who never were warned by the gods, and did not drink poison, and came upon evil days, suddenly like a ship upon rocks no mariner knows. Yes, poison to some of them would have been very precious.

The gods have warned me and I have not hearkened, and must go on alone: must enter that strange country of the future whose paths are so dark to man ... to meet a doom there that the gods have seen.

The gods have seen it! How shall I thwart the gods? How fight against the shapers of the hills?

Would that I had been warned. Would I had heeded when they bade me drink of the cup the Ambassador said was poisoned.

[ Far off is heard that merry bar of music blown by the Ambassador's Herald on his horn. ]

How like to wine it is, which is full of dreams. It is silent and dreamy like the gods, whose dreams we are.

[ He lifts up his arm and drinks it seated upon his throne with his head back and the great cup before his face. The audience begin to wonder when he will put it down. Still he remains in the attitude of a drinker. The acolytes begin to peer eagerly. Still he remains upright with the great cup to his lips. The acolytes patter away and the King is left alone.

[ Enter the King's Politician hurriedly. He goes up to the King and seizes his right arm and tries to drag the cup away from his lips, but the King is rigid and his arm cannot be moved. He steps back lifting up his hands.

[ A murmur is heard of men, at first mournful. It grows louder and louder and then breaks into these clear words.

Zarabardes is King! Zarabardes is King! Rejoice! Rejoice! Zarabardes is King! Zarabardes! Zarabardes! Zarabardes!

CURTAIN.

THE FLIGHT OF THE QUEEN

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ

The Prince of Zoon .
Prince Meliflor .
Queen Zoomzoomarma .
Lady Oozizi .
Oomuz , a Common Soldier.
The Glory of Ximenung .
The Overlord of Moomoomon .
Prince Huz .

Scene I

The Princes sit at plain oaken tables with pewter mugs before them. They wear bright grass-green cloaks of silk; they might wear circlets of narrow silver with one large hyacinth petal rising from it at intervals of an inch.

Oomuz , a Common Soldier, huge and squat, with brown skin and dense black beard, stands just inside the doorway, holding a pike, guarding the golden treasure.

The golden treasure lies in a heap three or four feet high near the right back corner.

Sentries , also brown-skinned and bearded, carrying pikes, pass and repass outside the great doorway.

Meliflor : Let us be well contented with our lot. The idle hours are our sacred treasure.

Ximenung : I sometimes dream that were it not for our glorious state, and this tradition of exalted ease, it might, it might be pleasant ...

Meliflor : No, never. We should lose our glorious ease, the heritage that none may question.

Moomoomon : If we could toil we should gain some spot of earth that our labour would seem to make our own. How happily the workers come home at evening.

Meliflor : To us alone the idle hours are given. The sky, the fields, the woods, the summer winds are for us alone. All others put the earth to uses. This or that field has this or that use; here one may go and another may not. They have each their bit of earth and become slaves to its purpose. But for us, ah! for us, is all; the gift of the idle hours.

[ Enter the Raiders of the Golden Hoard with spears and, in the other hand, leather wallets the size of your fist; these they cast on the heap. Nuggets the size of big filberts escape from some so that the heap is partly leather and partly gold. These wallets should be filled with nuggets of lead, about the size described, not one lump of lead and not sawdust or rags. Nothing destroys illusion on the stage more than a cannon ball falling with a soft pat. They look scowlingly at the Princes.

Zoon : Yes, from the Golden Hoard beyond the marshes. I went there once with old brown Oomuz there.

Meliflor : Of what avail is it to come back burdened thus? Has not the Queen more wealth than she'll ever need?

Zoon : The Queen obeys old impulses. Her sires are dead. Who knows whence those impulses come? How can we say what they are?

Zoon : She needs more, for she has bidden them go again to the Golden Hoards. Her impulses have demanded it.

Oomuz : Oh, Masters, Masters. If there be anything greater, greater than the Queen, speak not of it, Masters, speak not its name.

Moomoomon : No, there is nothing greater than the Queen, and she has no need of anything more than the treasure that he guards there.

Oomuz : There is one thing more. The Queen needs one thing more. This has been told us and we know.

Melifor : Take comfort in our heritage, illustrious comrades. Come! We will drink to the sun.

Meliflor : To the golden idle hours! ( He drinks. ) Let us be worthy, glorious companions, of our exalted calling. Let us enjoy the days of idleness. Sing to us, mighty one of Zoon, as the idle hours go by. Sing us a song.

Zoon : As you all know, I can but hum. But I will hum you a song that I heard yesterday; very strange it was; sung in the meadows by two that were not of our people; sung in the evening. I heard it as I loitered home from the meadows beyond the marshes. There is no ease in the song, and yet ...

[ They seem to wake as though young and strong out of sleep. There is a great commotion among them. The sentries outside are utterly unmoved. Oomuz , without sharing any of the excitement of the Princes, now nods his head solemnly as he had once shaken it.

Moomoomon : Love! It must have been that that I felt that day in the twilight as I came back round the peak of Zing-gee Mountain.

Moomoomon : All the air seemed gold, seemed gold of a sudden. Through it I saw fair fields, glittering green far down, glimpsed between clumps of the heather. The gold was all about them, yet they shone with their own fair colours. Ah, how can I tell you all I saw? My feet seemed scarce to touch the slope of the mountain; I too seemed one with the golden air in which all things were shining.

Moomoomon : I know not. It was some strange new thing. It was strange and new like this song.

Moomoomon : And then that evening in the golden light I knew the purpose of Earth and why all things are.

Meliflor : No, Princes. The best is idleness. Out of the idle hours all good things come.

Meliflor : It is like all things, the gift of the idle hours. The workers never love. Their fancies are fastened to the work they do, and do not roam towards love.

Meliflor : Behold me; not a poplar is straighter, not a flower is fairer. I will loiter along the lanes at evening.

[ He draws his sword. Ximenung does the same. Moomoomon draws his too and places it between them.

Moomoomon : Be at peace. I will go to the lanes, and there need be no quarrel between you, for I ....

[ They have all risen. They wave their swords on high, not threatening each other. Zoon alone has not risen.

Moomoomon ( to Zoon ): You do not speak, Prince of Zoon. Will you not love along the idle hours?

Moomoomon : Come then to the lanes to loiter. It draws towards evening. Let us all come to the lanes, where the honeysuckle is hanging.

Zoon : I love her than whom there is no greater on earth—( Some Princes : Ah!) unless it be that name that frightens Oomuz.

Moomoomon : She would go by Aether Mountain, where her mother went once before her.

Meliflor : I would follow too. I would dance after her down the little street: the bright heels of my shoes would twinkle: my cloak would float out behind me: I would pursue her and call her name, beyond the street and over the moor as far as Aether Mountain: but I would not come up with her: that would be too daring.

Zoon : Love is not a toy, Prince Meliflor. Love is no less than a mood of Destiny.

Zoon : There will be no idle hours on Aether Mountain, following from crag to crag; if it be true that she would go that way.

Moomoomon : It is true. They know it. They say her mother went that way before. It is one of the royal impulses.

Moomoomon : But they care for the event that is in our hands. They dare never touch us because of the event.

Meliflor : We are the heirs of the idle hours. For them is work. Surely they dare not leave their work to touch us.

Moomoomon : They care only for the event. Because it is prophesied that we are needed for the event we are sacred. Were it not for the event, why ...

Meliflor : Were it not for the event we might not dare to do it; but, being sacred, let us enjoy our idle hours.

Meliflor : It was prophesied long ago and has not come. It will not come for a long time.

Zoon : I would follow though I were not guarded for the event. Though the event should befall and we be immune no longer, still I should dare it.

Meliflor : Let us drum with our heels and beat with our scabbards against the benches so that we frighten the Queen. She will run from the palace then, and we will go after her with all our merry company.

Moomoomon : Yes, let us drum all together. I will give the word. All together and she will run from the palace. We will go after and our cloaks will stream behind us.

Meliflor : No, I will give the word. When she flees from the palace I will follow her first. Crowd not about my cloak as it streams in the wind. We must throw up our heels as we run to make our shoes twinkle. We must show gaily in the little street. Afterwards we can run more easily.

Moomoomon : I think that I should give the word when we rattle our scabbards and all drum with our heels; but I waive the point. But I do not think that the Queen can run far. She has never left the palace. How could she run over the moor as far as Aether Mountain. She will faint at the end of the street and we shall come up with her and bow and offer her our assistance.

Meliflor : They; what do they know? Common workers. What should they know of queens?

Ximenung : They have the old prophesies that came over the fields from the dawn.

Meliflor : Nay. You shall give the word, Moomoomon. When you raise your hand we will all drum with our heels together and rattle our scabbards together, and frighten the Queen.

Moomoomon : It is not that I fear, but, when a queen laughs—it makes a feeling in the palace—as though all were not well.

Meliflor : Perhaps; perhaps later we could return to our gallant scheme; for the present I think I'll hide a while.

Meliflor : So that if there be anything wrong in the palace it will not find us.

Zoon ( still to himself ): They will come back boasting that they dared follow the Queen.

Oomuz : In other times once princes followed a queen and came back boasting. Master, the workers were angry. Be warned, Master, because you and I went together once to the hoard beyond the marshes. Be warned. They were angry, Master.

Zoon : I care not, Oomuz. I come not boasting back from the hills under Aether Mountain. I shall not halt till I have told the Queen my love. I shall wed with her who is less only than Fate, if less she be. I am not as those, Oomuz. Who weds the Queen is more than the servant of Fate.

Oomuz : We know not, Master. We are simple people and we know not that. But we know from of old there is a doom about her. We know it, Master; we have been told from of old.

Oomuz : Follow not after, Master, when she goes to Aether Mountain. There is surely a doom about her. A doom was with her mother upon that very peak.

Zoon : Oomuz, I doubt not. For there is something wonderful about the Queen, beyond all earthly wonders. Something like thunder beyond far clouds or hail hurling from heaven; there should be indeed a terrible doom about her.

Oomuz : Master, I have warned you for the sake of the days when we raided the golden hoard beyond the marshes.

CURTAIN.

Scene II

Queen : Love is a joy, Oozizi; love is a glow. Love makes them dance so lightly along rays of the sunlight. It is made of sunlight and gladness. It is like flowers in twilight. How should they sigh?

Oozizi : True? Yes, great lady, true. But love is a toy of the humble; love is a common thing that the lowly use; love is ... Great lady, had any overheard you speaking then they might have thought, they might have madly dreamed ...

Lady, the green fields going from here to the blueness, and bending towards it, and going wandering on, and the rivers they meet and the woods that shade the rivers, all own you for their sovereign. Lady, a million lime-trees mellow your realm. The golden hoards are yours. Yours are the deep fields and the iris marshes. Yours are the roads of wandering and all ways home. The common delights of love your mere soldiers know. Lady, you may not love.

Oozizi : Lady, for a day. For one day, mighty lady, As one might stoop in idleness to a broken toy and pick it up and throw it again away, so she loved for a day. That idle fancy of an afternoon tarnished no pinnacle that shone from her exalted station. But to love for more than a day—( Queen's face lights up )—that were to place your high unequalled glory below a vulgar pastime. One alone may sit in the golden palace to reign over the green fields; but all may love.

Oozizi : The common shouts that come up at evening, the clamour of the lanes; they are but from love.

[ Both look thoughtfully out into dreams, the Queen on her throne, chin on hand.

Oozizi ( rises, listening anxiously ): It sounded ... to come from the Hall ... of the Hundred Princes.

Queen : Sound from beyond our wall, Oozizi. How it disturbs. I could not rule over the green fields if sounds came up to me from the further halls full of their strange thoughts. Why do sounds come to me, Oozizi?

Oozizi : Great lady, it has never been before. It will never be again. You must forget it, lady. You must not let it disturb your reign.

Queen : If it came again ... Is the door open, Oozizi? Yes ... If it came again I should almost flee from the palace.

[ Oozizi pants. The Queen waits, listening, in fear. Again the heels are heard.

Oozizi : Lady! Lady! You must never leave the palace. You must never leave it. You must not.

Oozizi : Lady, it would be terrible to leave the golden palace. Who would reign? What would happen?

Queen : And yet I would fain go over those green fields all gleaming with summer, and see the golden hoards that no man guards, glittering with such a light as glows this June.

Oozizi : O, speak not, great lady, of the green fields and June. It is these that have intoxicated the Princes so that they do this unrecorded thing, letting sound of them be heard in your sacred room.

[ The Queen runs to the door again. Oozizi stretches out her arms to the Queen .

Queen : I see the green fields gleaming. Strange flowers are standing among them, like princes I have not known.

Oozizi : Oh, lady, speak not of the bewildering fields. They are all enchanted with Summer, and they have maddened the Princes. It is dangerous to look at them, lady.

Queen : I would fain go far over the strange soft fields; far and far to the high heathery lands——

Queen : Oozizi, when I hear the sound of all their feet it is dreadful, and I must fly. And when I see the wonderful fields in the sunlight sloping away to lands I have never known, then I long to fly away and away for ever, passing from field to field and land to land.

Queen : There is a mountain there that towers above the earth. It goes up into a calm of which our world knows nothing. Heaven, like a cloak, is draped about its shoulders. Why have none told me of this mountain, Oozizi?

Oozizi : So they sing at evening, when they throw down their loads of gold and rest.

Oozizi : Lady, Destiny sent her; but you must not go. You must not leave your throne to go to Aether Mountain.

Oozizi : No, lady. They will never dare. You must not. Hark! They come no nearer. June has maddened them, but they come no nearer. They are quiet now. Come back, lady. Leave the door, they come no nearer. See, it is all quiet now. They come no nearer, lady. ( Oozizi catches her by the sleeve. ) Lady, you must not.

Queen : Aether Mountain is calling. I know now who called my mother. It was Aether Mountain, Oozizi; he is calling.

Oozizi : I—I scarce dare look out of the golden palace, lady, to where we must not go. Yet, yet I will look. ( She peers. ) Yes, yes, indeed; there stands old Aether Mountain. But he does not call. Indeed he does not call. He is all silent in Heaven.

Queen : That great, great silence is his voice, Oozizi. He is calling me out of that blue waste of Heaven.

Oozizi : Come away, lady. It is bad to look so long. Oh, if the Princes had not made their clamour heard! Oh, if they had not you had not gone to the door and seen Aether Mountain, and this trouble had not come. Oh! Oh! Oh!

Queen : There is no trouble there. Aether Mountain goes all calm into Heaven. His grey-blue slopes are calm as the sky about him. There he stands calling. He is calling to me, Oozizi.

Oozizi : Can it be that it is with you, great lady, as it was with the Queen, your mother, when Destiny sent her hence to Aether Mountain?

Lady, be seated here once more and take up the orb and sceptre in your small hands as of old.

Now, if Destiny calls you, let him call to you as to a Queen. Now, if it be for no whim of those that pass, that you would go so far from here to that great mountain, say, seated upon your throne in the golden palace with sceptre and orb in hand, say would you go forth, lady?

[ Oozizi bursts into tears. She helps the Queen by the arm from her throne and leads her part of the way to the door. There she stops. The Queen goes on to the door alone.

[ The Queen gazes out rapturously towards Aether Mountain. Then she walks back and embraces Oozizi.

[ The Queen turns, then suddenly she runs swiftly and nimbly through the door and disappears.

[ Oozizi answers with a defiant look through her tears, which has its effect on them.

[ They stream across from the side door R to the door in back , Oozizi regarding them haughtily.

[ Entranced, silent, last of all Zoon follows. Exeunt all the Princes. Sounds as of rough protest heard from the workers off. The grim brown heads of two or three peer round the door by which the Princes entered. Many come on, dumb, puzzled, turning their brown heads, searching. At last they cluster round Oozizi . "Er"? they say.

CURTAIN.

Scene III

Low down, far off and small in the background to the right appears a little palace of pure gold.

Enter right the Queen running untired and nimble, unchecked by those grey rocks.

Ximenung ( going wearily ): Great lady. A moment. One moment, great lady. Allow me.

[ But Zoon does not speak. Exeunt L. the Queen and those Princes that have not fallen. The curtain falls on stragglers crossing the stage.

CURTAIN.

Scene IV

On the snow on the pinnacle of Aether Mountain, with only bright blue sky all round and everywhere, recline Queen Zoomzoomarma and the Prince of Zoon .

Zoon : Lady, look down. ( She looks. ) The earth is sorrowful. ( She sighs. ) Cares. Cares. All over the wide surface we can see are troubles; troubles far off and grey, that harm not Aether Mountain.

Zoon : Lady, here is your home, this peak that has entered heaven. Let us never leave your home.

Zoon : This is your home; not Earth; no golden palace. Reign here alone, not knowing the cares of men, without yesterday or to-morrow, untroubled by history or council.

Zoon ( seizing her hand ): Oh, Zoomzoomarma, say not you hope that Earth was real. It is gone now. See; it is so far away. Sigh not for Earth, oh lady, sigh not for Earth.

Zoon : Because when you sigh for tiny things I tremble for your love. See how faint and small it is and how far away.

Zoon : No, lady, no. Be with me always wholly, living not partly in dreams. There is no Earth. It is but a dream that left us. See, see ( pointing down ) it is a dim dream.

Queen ( looking down ): The people move there still. See, there is Prince Ximenung. Something down there seems almost unlike dreams.

Zoon : This is where love is, and here only. We should not dream too much or think of dreams, because the place is holy.

Zoon : On this clear peak that just enters Heaven love is and only here. The rest is dreams.

Zoon : No, no, there are things too real for dreams. You cannot waken from love. Dreams are of fantastic things, things fanciful and weak, and things confused and intricate like Earth. When you think of them in your dreams you see their unreality. But if love were not real what could there be to wake to.

Queen : True. How wise you are. It was but a fancy that troubled me. ( Looking down. ) It was one of those dreams at dawn. It is faint and far-off now.

Queen : Let us look at the dream far off, in the dimness our thoughts have forsaken.

Zoon : Aye, let us look. It was a sad dream somewhat; and yet upon this peak where all is love all that we see seems happy.

Queen : See the dream there. Look at those. They seem to walk dreamily as they walk in the dream.

Zoon : It is Prince Meliflor, Prince Moomoomon, Prince Ximenung that run in the dream. And the Prince of Huz. The brown men are close.

Queen : In your voice there seemed to sound some far-off thing. Some strange thing. Was it sorrow?

Zoon : No; we are too high; sorrow cannot come. No grief can touch us here, no woe drift up to us from the woes of Earth.

Queen : I thought there was some strange thing in your voice, like sorrows we have dreamed.

Zoon : Never you, my Golden Zoomzoomarma, for on this sacred peak where there is only love you cannot.

Queen : It is the years that make them drowsy. They dream to dream the years away. Time cannot reach so high as here, the years are far below us.

Zoon : If time could reach us here we should pass, too. Nothing is real where time is.

Queen : How shall we spend the calm that time does not vex, together here for ever?

Zoon : Holding your hand. ( She gives it. ) And kissing it often in the calm of eternity. Sometimes watching, a moment, the dream go by; then kissing your hand again all in eternity.

Queen : Thus we will live until the dream goes by and Earth has faded under Aether Mountain.

Zoon : It is because all is real. In the dream nothing was real. Music had to be made and then soon passed trembling away. Here all things always are as the desire of Earth, Earth's desire that groped among fantasies finding them false.

Zoon : All is unreal but love, my crownéd Zoomzoomarma. Where there was not love it cannot have been true.

Zoon : By Aether Mountain, I will kiss your hand again! What is this saying out of a dream that dares deny reality?

Zoon : Out of that hurried, aimless dream, that knows not its own end even, you have brought me a saying and say it against love.

Zoon : Oh, Zoomzoomarma, forget that troubled dream, and things said by dreamers, while I kiss your hand in heaven if only once again.

Zoon : Though it be death, yet once again upon Aether Mountain in heaven I kiss your hand.

[ She standing kills him kneeling. He falls off Aether Mountain, behind it out of sight.

[ As he falls he calls her name after intervals. She kneels upon the summit and watches him falling, falling, falling.

[ Fainter and fainter as he falls from that tremendous height comes up her name as he calls it.

[ At last when his cry of Zoomzoomarma comes almost unheard to that incredible height and then is heard no more, she turns, and with infinite neatness picking up her skirts steps down daintily over the snow.

CURTAIN.

CHEEZO

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ

Sladder , a successful man .
Splurge , his secretary and publicity agent .
The Rev. Charles Hippanthigh .
Butler .
Mrs. Sladder .
Ermyntrude Sladder .

Scene

The big house that Sladder has bought in the country. Sladder's study. Large French window opening on to a lawn.

Sladder's daughter is seated in an armchair tapping on the arm of it a little impatiently.

The door opens very cautiously, and the head of Mrs. Sladder is put round it.

Ermyntrude ( taps the arm of the chair ): O, nothing, mother. Only about that idea of his.

Mrs. Sladder : And why shouldn't you marry a duke, child? I am sure father would make it worth his while.

Ermyntrude : ——did say that dukes were no good, mother. They oppress the poor, I think he said.

Mrs. Sladder : Yes, yes, of course. At the same time, father had rather set his heart on it. You wouldn't have any other reason now, child, would you?

Ermyntrude : What more do you want, mother? Mr. Jones is a Cabinet Minister; he must know what he's talking about.

Mrs. Sladder ( with enthusiasm ): Well, I'm sure he deserves it. But child, you mustn't talk to father to-day. You mustn't stay here any longer.

Mrs. Sladder : Well, child, he's been smoking one of those big cigars again, and he's absent-like. And he's been talking a good deal with Mr. Splurge. It's one of his great days, I think, Ermyntrude. I feel sure it is. One of those days that has given us all this money, and all these fine houses, with all those little birds that his gentlemen friends shoot. He has an idea!

Mrs. Sladder : I'm sure of it, child. ( Looking out. ) There! There he is! Walking along that path that they made. I can see he's got an idea. How like Napoleon. * He's walking with Mr. Splurge. They're coming in now. Come along, Ermyntrude, we mustn't disturb him to-day. He has some great idea, some great idea.

Mrs. Sladder : Ah. I could never explain it to you, even if I knew. It is business, child, business. It isn't everybody that can understand business.

Mrs. Sladder : There must be things we can never understand: things too deep for us like. And business is the most wonderful of them all.

[ Enter Sladder and Splurge through the window, which opens on to the lawn, down a step or two.

Sladder : Splurge, I am going to say to you now, what I couldn't talk about with all those gardeners hanging about. And, by the way, Splurge, haven't we bought rather too many gardeners?

Splurge : No, sir. The Earl of Etheldune has seven; we had to go one better than him, sir.

Sladder : Ah, quite right, Splurge, quite right. There seemed to be rather a lot, but that's quite right. Well, now to business.

Splurge : I've had some nice little posters done, sir. I'm having it well written up. I've got some samples here, and it looks like doing very well indeed.

Splurge : It's a grand name, if I may say so, sir. It sounds so classical-like with that "O" at the end; and yet anyone can see what it's derived from, even if he's never learnt anything. It suggests cheese to them every time.

Splurge : Well, sir, here's one. ( Brings paper from pocket. Reads. ) "What is Cheezo? Go where you may, speak with whom you will, the same question confronts you. Cheezo is the great new——"

Sladder : No, Splurge. Cut that question bit. We must have no admission on our part that there's anyone who doesn't know what Cheezo is. Cut it.

Splurge : You're quite right, sir; you're quite right. That's a weak bit. I'll cut it. ( He scratches it out. Reads. ) "Cheezo is the great new food. It builds up body and brain."

Splurge : "There is a hundred times more lactic fluid in an ounce of Cheezo than in a gallon of milk."

Splurge : I don't know, sir, but it's good stuff all right. It's the right thing to have in it. It's a good man that I got to write this.

Splurge : It will go down all right, sir, so long as the posters are big enough.

Sladder : Go down all right! I wasn't fool enough to suppose that it wouldn't go down all right. What are posters for if the public doesn't believe them? Of course it will go down all right.

Sladder : I might invent another food one of these days, and then where should we be?

Splurge : ( Scratches with pencil ). "Cheezo is made out of the purest milk from purest English cows."

Sladder : Y-e-s, y-e-s. I don't say you're wrong. I don't say you're exactly wrong. But in business, Splurge, you want to keep more to generalities. Talk about the bonds that bind the Empire, talk about the Union Jack, talk by all means about the purity of the English cow; but definite statements you know, definite statements——

Splurge : O, yes, I know, sir; but the police never interfere with anything one puts on a poster. It would be bad for business, a jury would never convict, and——

Sladder : I didn't say they would; but if some interfering ass were to write to the papers to say that Cheezo wasn't made from milk, we should have to go to the expense of buying a dozen cows, and photographing them, and one thing and another. ( He gets up and goes to cupboard. ) Now, look here. I quite understand what you say, purity and all that, and a very good point too, but you look at this.

[ He unrolls a huge poster representing a dairymaid smirking in deadly earnest. On it is printed: "WON'T YOU HAVE SOME?" and on another part of the poster "CHEEZO FOR PURITY."

You see. Your whole point's there. We state nothing and we can make the dairymaid as suggestive as we like.

Sladder : They shall look at that on every road and railway, where it enters every town in England. I'll have it on the cliffs of Dover. It shall be the first thing they see when they come back home, and the last thing for them to remember when they leave England. I'll have it everywhere. I'll rub their noses in it. And then, Splurge, they'll ask for Cheezo when they want cheese, and that will mean I shall have the monopoly of all the cheese in the world.

Sladder : I'll be a greater one, Splurge. I'm not past work yet. What more have you got?

Splurge : I've rather a nice little poster being done, sir. A boy and a girl looking at one another with a rather knowing look. There's a large query mark all over the girl's dress. Then over the top in big letters I've put: "What is the secret?" and in smaller letters: "I've got a bit of Cheezo." It makes people look at it, the children's faces are so wicked.

Sladder : Good, Splurge. Very good. I'll have that one. I'll rub their noses in that one.

Splurge : Then I've got some things for the Press. ( Reads. ) "She: 'Darling.' He: 'Yes, wifey.' She: 'You won't forget, darling.' He: 'No, wifey.' She: 'You won't forget to bring me some of that excellent Cheezo, so nutritious, so nice for darling baby, to be had at all grocers; but be sure that you find the name of Sladder on their well-known pink wrappers.' He: 'Certainly, wifey.'" Just the usual thing, sir, of course; only I have a very good little picture to go with it, very suggestive indeed; I've made all the arrangements with the Press and the bill-posters, sir. I think we'll make a big thing of it, sir.

Sladder : Well, Splurge, nothing remains to be done now, except to make the Cheezo.

Sladder : Do you know how they kill pigs in Chicago? No, you've not travelled yet. Well, they get their pigs on a slide, one man cuts their throats as fast as they go by, another shaves their bristles, and so on, and so on; one man for each job, and all at it at once; they do it very expeditiously. Well, there's an interfering fellow sent there by the Government (we wouldn't stand him in England), and if a pig has a sign of tuberculosis on him he won't let that pig go down. Now you'd think that pig was wasted. He isn't. He goes into soap. Now, Splurge, how many cakes of soap were used in the world last year?

Splurge ( getting up ): Last year? I don't think we have the figures in for last year yet, sir.

Splurge : ( taking book and turning pages ): The figures are given, I think, sir, from the 1st of March to the 1st of March.

Splurge : Ah, here it is, sir. Soap statistics for the twelve months ending 1st of March this year. A hundred and four million users, using on an average twenty cakes each per year. Then there are partial users, and occasional users. The total would be about twenty-one hundred million, sir.

Sladder : Pure waste. What do you suppose becomes of all that soap, all that good fat? Proteids, I think they call 'em. And proteids are good for you, Splurge.

Sladder : No, Splurge. They disappear, I grant you. They float away. But they're still there Splurge, they're still there. All that good fat is somewhere.

Sladder : All those million of cakes of soap. There must be tons of it, Splurge. And we'll get it.

Sladder : O, I've a few brains, Splurge. That anyone might have. But I use mine, that's all. There's cleverer people than me in the world——

Sladder : O, yes, there are. Lots of them. But they're damned fools. And why? 'Cause they don't use their brains. They mess about learning Greek. Greek! Can you believe it? What good does Greek ever do them?... But the money's not made yet, Splurge.

Splurge : O, they'll eat it all right when it's advertised, sir. They eat everything that's advertised.

Sladder : The battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of some damned place. A million of money will be won or lost in this house in five minutes.

Sladder ( draws a box from his pocket, takes out a little bit of cheese ): Give them that, Ermyntrude.

[ She moves to the door R., she looks round, then goes out by the French window instead.

Ermyntrude : O—er—I thought it would be nice to go round over the lawn, father. I can get in by the drawing-room.

[ The magnet that has attracted Ermyntrude to the lawn now appears in the form of Mr. Hippanthigh , passing the window on his way to the hall-door. Sladder and Splurge do not see him, having their backs to the window. Ermyntrude looks round now and then to be sure of this. They hold hands longer than is laid down as necessary in books upon etiquette under the head of visiting. She gives him a look of glad and hopeful interrogation but he shakes his head solemnly, and passes gravely on, as one whose errand is no cheerful duty. She looks after him, then goes her way.

Sladder : Well, Splurge, we can only wait. ( With emphasis. ) If these mice eat it——

Splurge : O, only the cook, sir. He's complaining about the vegetables, sir. He says he's never been anywhere before where they didn't buy them. We get them out of the kitchen garden here, and it seems he doesn't understand it. Says he won't serve a greengrocer, sir.

Splurge : I asked the cook that, sir, and he said they don't grow them, they buy them.

Sladder : O, all right, then. Let him buy them, then. We must do the right thing.

Splurge : I think so, sir. I think they call on one another like that in the country.

Sladder : Good lord, whatever for? ( To Butler .) O, yes. I'll see him, I'll see him.

Sladder : I say, Splurge, I suppose I've got to have a butler, and all that, eh?

Splurge : I'm afraid not, sir. If you were to take all this too lightheartedly, the other landowners would hardly like it, you know.

Sladder : O, the curate. O, yes. I've heard about him. He's been here before, I think. Lawn tennis.

Sladder : Alone, eh? Alone? ( Aside to Splurge .) It's usual, eh? ( To Hippanthigh .) Alone, of course, yes. You've come to call, haven't you. ( Exit Splurge .) Can I offer you—er, er—calling's not much in my line, you know—but what I mean is—will you have a bottle of champagne?

Hippanthigh : Mr. Sladder, I've come to speak with you because I believe it to be my duty to do so. I have hesitated to come, but when for particular reasons it became most painful to me to do so, then I knew that it was my clear duty, and I have come.

Hippanthigh : Mr. Sladder, many of my parishioners are acquainted with the thing that you sell as bread. ( From the moment of Hippanthigh's entry till now Sladder , over-cheerful and anxious, has been struggling to do and say the right thing through all the complications of a visit; but now that the note of Business has been sounded he suddenly knows where he is and becomes alert and stern, and all there. )

Hippanthigh : Yes. They pay more for it than they pay for bread, because they've been taught somehow, poor fools, that "they must have the best." They've been made to believe that it makes them, what they call virile, poor fools, and they're growing ill on it. Not so ill that I can prove anything, and the doctor daren't help me.

Sladder : Are you aware, Mr. Hippanthigh, that if you said in public what you're saying to me, you would go to prison for it, unless you can run to the very heavy fine—damages would be enormous.

Hippanthigh : I know that, Mr. Sladder, and so I have come to you as the last hope for my people.

Sladder : Are you aware, Mr. Hippanthigh, that you are making an attack upon business? I don't say that business is as pure as a surplice. But I do say that in business it is—as you may not understand—get on or go under; and without my business, or the business of the next man, who is doing his best to beat me, what would happen to trade? I don't know what's going to happen to England if you get rid of her trade, Mr. Hippanthigh.... Well?... When we're broke because we've been doing business with surplices on, what are the other countries going to do, Mr. Hippanthigh? Can you answer me that?

Sladder : Glad you admit the point. As for cleverness it isn't that I've so much of that, but I use what I've got. Well, have you anything more to say?

Hippanthigh : Only to appeal to you, Mr. Sladder, on behalf of these poor people.

Sladder : Why. But you admitted one must have business, and that it can't be run like a tea-party. What more do you want?

Sladder : Spare them? Spare them? Why, what's the matter with them? I'm not killing them.

Hippanthigh : No, Mr. Sladder, you're not killing them. The mortality among children's a bit on the high side, but I wouldn't say that was entirely due to your bread. There's a good many minor ailments among the grown-up people, it seems to attack their digestion mostly, one can't trace each case to its source; but their health and their teeth aren't what they were when they had the pure wheaten bread.

Hippanthigh : Ah, they can't help themselves, poor fools; they've been taught to do it from their childhood up. Virilo, Bredo and Weeto, that are all so much better than bread, it's a choice between these three. Bread is never advertised, or God's good wheat.

Sladder : Mr. Hippanthigh, if I'm too much of a fool to sell my goods I suffer for it; if they're such fools as to buy my Virilo, they suffer for it—that is to say, you say they do—that is a natural law that may be new to you. But why should I suffer more than them? Besides, if I take my Virilo off the market just to oblige you, Mr. Hippanthigh, a little matter of £30,000 a year——

Sladder : O, don't mention it. Any little trifle to oblige! But if I did, up would go the sales of Bredo and Weeto (which have nothing to do with my firm), and your friends wouldn't be any better for that let me tell you, for I happen to know how they're made.

Hippanthigh : I am not speaking of the wickedness of others. I come to appeal to you, Mr. Sladder, that for nothing that you do, our English race shall lose anything of its ancient strength, in its young men in their prime, or that they should grow infirm a day sooner than God intended, when He planned his course for man.

[ Sladder draws himself up, and stands erect to meet the decisive news that he has expected.

Hippanthigh ( solemnly ): What new wickedness is this, Mr. Sladder? ( All stand silent. ) Good-bye, Mr. Sladder.

[ He goes to the door, passing Ermyntrude . He looks at her and sighs as he goes. He passes Mrs. Sladder near the door, and bows in silence.

Sladder : Saying! He's been doing all the saying. He doesn't let you do much saying, does Hippanthigh.

Sladder : He came to call your poor old father all kinds of bad names, he did. It seems your old father is a wicked fellow, Ermyntrude.

[ Hippanthigh goes by the window with a mournful face. Ermyntrude runs to the window and watches him till he is out of sight. She quietly waves her hand to Hippanthigh , unseen by her father.

Sladder : O, he meant it all right. He meant it. I'm sorry for that bishop of his that he quarrels with, if he lets him have it the way he went for your poor old father. O, dear me; dear me.

Ermyntrude : I don't think he quarrels with him, father. I think he only insists that there can be no such thing as eternal punishment. I think that's rather nice of him.

Sladder : I don't care a damn about eternal punishment one way or the other. But a man who quarrels with the head of his firm's a fool. If his bishop's keen on hell, he should push hell for all it's worth.

Ermyntrude : Y-e-s, I suppose he should. But, father, aren't you glad that my mice have eaten the new cheese? I thought you'd be glad, father.

Sladder : So I am, child. So I am. Only I don't feel quite so glad as I thought I was going to, now. I don't know why. He seems to have stroked me the wrong way somehow.

Sladder : And so I will, child. So I will. A motor if you like, with chauffeur and footman complete. We can buy anything now, and I wouldn't grudge——

Sladder : Ah! Quite so. Quite so. Quite so. And who did you think of marrying?

Sladder : Well? ( Ermyntrude is silent. ) When I was his age, I had to work hard for my living.

Sladder : O, I guessed he was 82, going to be 83 next birthday. But I daresay I know nothing of the world. I daresay I may have been wrong.

Sladder : Dear me, you don't say so. Dear me, you do surprise me. Well, well, well, well. We do live and learn. Don't we? And what might his name be now?

Sladder : O-o-o! It's Mr. Hippanthigh, is it? O-ho, O-ho! ( He touches a movable bell, shouting " Splurge !" To his daughter or rather to himself. ) We'll see Mr. Hippanthigh.

Sladder : We'll see Mr. Hippanthigh. ( Enter Splurge .) Splurge, run after Mr. Hippanthigh and bring him back. Say I've got something to say to him. He's gone that way. Quick!

Sladder : O, I'll be kind to him. I'll be kind to him. Just you wait. I'll be kind to him!

Ermyntrude : But you wouldn't send him away, father. Father, for my sake you wouldn't do that?

Sladder : O, I've sent for him to give him What For. We'll come to the rest later.

Sladder : Why, when we do come to it, if the young man's any good, I'll not stand in my daughter's way——

Sladder : If a man's a man, he must be some good at something. Well, this man's chosen the clergyman job. I've nothing against the job, it's well enough paid at the top, but is this young man ever going to get there? Is he ever going to get off the bottom rung? How long has he been a curate?

Ermyntrude : But, father, he would get a vicarage if it wasn't for the bishop. The bishop stands in his way. It isn't nice of him.

Sladder : If I'd quarrelled with the head of my firm when I was his age, you wouldn't be getting proposals from a curate; no such luck. The dustman would have been more in your line.

Ermyntrude : But, father, he doesn't quarrel with the bishop. His conscience doesn't let him believe in eternal punishment, and so he speaks straight out. I do admire him so for it. He knows that if he was silent he'd have had a good living long ago.

Sladder : The wife of the head of my firm believed in spirit rapping. Did I go and tell her what an old fool she was? No, I brought her messages from another world as regular as a postman.

Sladder : The man that's going to look after my daughter must be able to look after himself. Otherwise I will, till a better man comes.

[ Exit Ermyntrude . Hippanthigh and Splurge appear at the window. Hippanthigh enters and Splurge moves away.

Sladder : Y-e-s—y-e-s. Take a chair. Now, Mr. Hippanthigh, I haven't often been told off the way you told me off.

Sladder : Yes, quite so. Exactly. Well, it seems I'm a thoroughly bad old man, only fit to rob the poor, an out-and-out old ruffian.

Sladder : No. But you made me feel it. I never felt so bad about myself before, not as bad as that. But you, Mr. Hippanthigh, you were the high-falutin' angel with a new brass halo, out on its bank holiday. Now, how would clandestine love-making strike you, Mr. Hippanthigh? Would that be all right to your way of thinking?

Sladder : Well, I haven't heard you say anything about it to me before. Did you tell her mother?

Sladder : Well, I think clandestine's the word for it, Mr. Hippanthigh. I haven't had time in my life to bother about the exact 1 meanings of words or any nonsense of that sort, but I think clandestine's about the word for it.

Sladder : May be. And who began using hard words? You came here and made me out a pickpocket, just because I use a few tasty little posters which sell my goods, and all the while you're trying on the sly to take a poor old man's daughter away from him. Well, Mr. Hippanthigh?

Hippanthigh : I—I never looked at it in that light before, Mr. Sladder. I never thought of it in that way. You have made me feel ashamed ( he lowers his head ), ashamed.

Sladder : Aha! Aha! I thought I would. Now you know what it's like when you make people ashamed of themselves. You don't like it when they do it to you. Aha! ( Sladder is immensely pleased with himself. )

Hippanthigh : Mr. Sladder, I spoke to you as my conscience demanded, and you have shown me that I have done wrong in not speaking sooner about our engagement. I would have spoken to you, but I could not say that and the other thing in the same day. I meant to tell you soon;—well, I didn't, and I know it looks bad. I've done wrong and I admit it.

Hippanthigh : But, Mr. Sladder, you would not on that account perhaps spoil your daughter's happiness, and take a terrible revenge on me. You would not withhold your consent to our——

Sladder : Wait a moment; we're coming to that. There's some bad animal that I've heard of that lives in France, and when folks attack it it defends itself. I've just been defending myself. I think I've shown you that you're no brand-new extra-gilt angel on the top of a spire.

Sladder : Quite so. Well, now we come on to the other part. Very well. Those lords and people, they marry one another's daughters, because they know they're all no good. They're afraid it will get out like, and spread some of their damned mediæval ideas where they'll do harm. So they keep it in the family like. But we people who have had the sense to look after ourselves, we don't throw our daughters away to any young man that can't look after himself. See?

Sladder : She's my only daughter, and if any of my grandchildren are going to the work-house, they'll go to one where the master's salary is high, and they'll go there as master.

Hippanthigh : I am aware, Mr. Sladder, that I have very little money; as you would look at it, very little.

Sladder : It isn't the amount of money you've got as matters. The question is this: are you a young man as money is any good to? If I died and left you a million, would you know what to do with it? I've met men what wouldn't last more than six weeks on a million. Then they'd starve if nobody gave them another million. I'm not going to give my daughter to one of that sort.

Sladder : I don't give a damn for classics; and I don't give a damn for Cambridge; and I don't know what a tripos is. But all I can tell you is that if I was fool enough to waste my time with classics, third wouldn't 2 be good enough for me. No, Mr. Hippanthigh, you've chosen the church as your job, and I've nothing to say against your choice; its a free country, and I've nothing to say against your job; it's well enough paid at the top, only you don't look like getting there. I chose business as my job, there seemed more sense in it; but if I'd chosen the Church, I shouldn't have stuck as a curate. No, nor a bishop either. I wouldn't have had an archbishop ballyragging me and ordering me about. No. I'd have got to the top, and drawn big pay, and spent it.

Hippanthigh : But, Mr. Sladder, I could be a vicar to-morrow if my conscience would allow me to cease protesting against a certain point which the bishop holds to be——

Sladder : I know all about that. I don't care what it is that keeps you on the bottom rung of the ladder. Conscience, you say. Well, it's a different thing with every man. It's conscience with some, drink with others, sheer stupidity with most. It's pretty crowded already, that bottom rung, without me going and putting my daughter on it. Where do you suppose I'd be now if I'd let my conscience get in my way? Eh?

Sladder : Nobody asks you to. I only ask you to leave the bishop alone. He says one thing and you preach another whenever you get half a chance; it's enough to break up any firm.

Hippanthigh : Believing as I do that eternal punishment is incompatible with——

Sladder : Now, Mr. Hippanthigh, that's got to stop. I don't mind saying, now that I've given you What For, that you don't seem a bad young fellow: but my daughter's not going to marry on the bottom rung, and there's an end of that.

Hippanthigh : But, Mr. Sladder, can you bring yourself to believe in anything so terrible as eternal punishment, so contrary to——

Sladder : That particular belief never happened to stand between me and the top of the tree. Many things did, but they're all down below me now, Mr. Hippanthigh, way down there ( pointing ) where I can hardly see them. You get off that bottom rung as I did years ago.

Sladder : I don't want to make it hard for you. Only just say you believe in eternal punishment, and then give up talking about it. You may say it to me if you like. We'll have one other person present so that there's no going back on it, my daughter if you like. I'll let the bishop know, and he won't stand in your way any longer, but at present you force his hand. It's you or the rules of the firm.

Sladder : You can't just say to me and my daughter that you believe in eternal punishment, and leave me to go over to Axminster and put it right with the bishop?

Sladder : Think. The bishop probably doesn't believe it himself. But you've been forcing his hand,—going out of your way to.

Sladder ( rising ): Mr. Hippanthigh, there's two kinds of men, those that succeed, those that don't. I know no other kind. You ...

Sladder : I don't care what your reason is. You are the second kind. I am sorry my daughter ever loved a man of that sort. I am sorry a man of that sort ever entered my house. I was a little, dirty, ragged boy. You make me see what I would be to-day if I had been a man of your kind. I would be dirty and ragged still. ( His voice has been rising during this speech. )

Sladder : My child, I had foolish ideas for you once, but now I say that you are to marry a man, not a wretched, miserable little curate, who will be a wretched, miserable little curate all his life.

Sladder : I've given him every chance. I've given him more than every chance, but he prefers the bottom rung of the ladder; there we will leave him.

Sladder : It's not my fault, and it's not the bishop's fault. It's his own silly pig-headedness.

Ermyntrude ( going up to Hippanthigh ): O, Charlie, couldn't you do what father wants?

[ Enter Mrs. Sladder carrying a wire cage, with two dead white mice in it. Also Splurge .

Mrs. Sladder 3 : O, the mice have died, John. The mice have died. O, Ermyntrude's poor mice! And father's great idea! Whatever shall we do?

[ Sladder ages in his chair. You would say he was beaten. Suddenly he tautens up his muscles and stands up straight with shoulders back and clenched hands.

So they would beat Sladder, would they? They would beat Sladder. No, that has yet to be done. We'll go on, Splurge. The public shall eat Cheezo. It's a bit strong perhaps. We'll tone it down with bad nuts that they use for the other cheeses. We'll advertise it, and they'll eat it. See to it, Splurge. They don't beat Sladder.

Hippanthigh ( suddenly with clear emphasis ): I THINK I DO BELIEVE IN ETERNAL PUNISHMENT.

Sladder : Ah. At last. Well, Ermyntrude, is your cruel old parent's blessing any use to you?

Mrs. Sladder : Why, Ermyntrude! Well, I never! And to think of all this happening in one day!

[ Hippanthigh is completely beaten. Ermyntrude is smiling at him. He puts an arm round her shoulder in dead silence.

CURTAIN.

A GOOD BARGAIN

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ

Brother Antoninus .
Brother Lucullus Severus .
Brother Gregorius Pedro .
Satan .
Smoggs .

Scene

A Crypt of a Monastery. Brother Gregorius Pedro is seated on a stone bench reading. Behind him is a window.

Gregorius Pedro : Well, why not he? He is holy as any, fasts as often as any, wears coarser clothing than most of us, and once scourged a woman because she looked at our youngest—scourged her right willingly.

Lucullus Severus : We knew him, somehow. One does not know the blessed saints of heaven.

Gregorius Pedro : No, no indeed. I never thought to see such a thing on earth; and now, now ... you say it is certain?

Gregorius Pedro : Ah, well. It seemed like it, it seemed like it for some days. At first I thought I had looked too long through our eastern window, I thought it was the sun that had dazzled my eyes; and then, then it was clearly something else.

Gregorius Pedro : ( Sighs ) We shall water the roses no more, he and I. We shall roll the lawns no more. We shall tend the young tulips together never again.

Lucullus Severus : The gate bell, brother! Be of good cheer, it is the gate bell ringing!

Lucullus Severus : Why, brother, the world is at the gate. We shall see someone. It is an event. Someone will come and speak of the great world. Oh, be of good cheer, be of good cheer, brother.

Smoggs : Well, miracles if you like it better, and we won't 'ave it, nor any of your 'igh church games nor devices.

Lucullus Severus : Friend, you perplex us. We hoped you would speak to us of the great world, its gauds, its wickedness, its——

Lucullus Severus : Tell us, friend, tell us what you mean. Then we will do whatever you ask. And then you shall speak to us of the world.

Smoggs : There 'e is, there 'e is, the blighter. There 'e is. 'E's coming. O Lord...!

Gregorius Pedro : I noticed it dimly just three days ago. I noticed it dimly. But I did not—— I could not guess ... I never dreamed that it would come to this.

Lucullus Severus : Look how unusual it is. People will talk. You heard what that man said. They will all talk.

Gregorius Pedro : Poor Antoninus. Yes, yes. Brother, I think if we had not been here he would have come and sat on this bench.

Lucullus Severus : I think he would. But he was ashamed to come, looking, looking like that.

Gregorius Pedro : Brother, let us go. It is the hour at which he loves to come and sit here, and read in the Little Book of Lesser Devices. Let us go so that he may come here and be alone.

[ Exeunt. The bare, sandaled foot of Antoninus appears as the last heel lifts in the other doorway.

[ Enter Antoninus rather timidly. He goes to bench and sits. He sighs. He shakes his head to loosen the halo, but in vain. He sighs. Then he opens his book and reads in silence. Silence gives way to mumbles, mumbles to words. 4

[ Enter Satan . He has the horns and long hair and beard of a he-goat. His face and voice are such as could have been once in heaven.

Satan : There fell with me from heaven a rare, rare spirit, the light of whose limbs far outshone dawn and evening.

Satan : For that rare spirit I would have the gaud you wear, that emblem, that bright ornament. In return I offer you——

Antoninus : I do not need it. Life is a penance and ordained as a tribulation. I have come through by striving. Why should I care to strive again?

Satan ( laughs ): There are girls coming over the hills, brother. Through the green leaves and the May.

Satan : Wait, brother, they are far off yet. But you would not scourge them, you would not scourge them, they are so ... Ah! one has torn her dress!

Satan : No, no, brother. See, I can see her ankle through the rent. You would not scourge her. Your great scourge would break that little ankle.

Satan : She is with her comrades. They are maying. Seven girls. ( Antoninus grips his scourge. ) Her arms are full of may.

Satan : How the leaves are shining. Now she is seated on the grass. They have gathered small flowers, Antoninus, and put them in her hair, a row of primroses.

Antoninus ( his eyes go for a moment on to far, far places. Unintentionally ): What colour?

Satan : Sixteen and seventeen and fifteen, and another of sixteen. All young girls. The age for you, Antoninus, if I make you twenty. Just the age for you.

Satan : Give me your gaud. Then meet me at any hour between star-shining and cock-crow under the big cherry tree, when the moon is waning.

Satan : And no more striving next time. See Antoninus, see them as they dance, there with the may behind them under the hill.

Satan : Ah, look at them, Antoninus. Their sweet figures. And the warm wind blowing in Spring.

Antoninus : Which ... ( a little peal of girlish laughter off ). Which cherry tree did you speak of?

Antoninus ( with an effort ): It shall be held accursed. I will warn the brethren. It shall be cut down and hewn asunder and they shall burn it utterly.

Satan : They have made a garland of may, a long white garland drooped from their little hands. Ah, if you were young, Antoninus.

[ The girls sing , Satan smiles, the girls sing on. Antoninus tip-toes to seat, back to window, and sits listening. The girls sing on. They pass the window and shake the branch of a cherry tree. The petals fall in sheets past the window. The girls sing on and Antoninus sits listening.

Antoninus ( hand to forehead ): My head aches. I think it is that song.... Perhaps, perhaps it is the halo. Too heavy, too heavy for us .

[ Satan walks gently up and removes it and walks away with the gold disc. Antoninus sits silent.

[ Exit. More petals fall past the window. The song rings on. Antoninus sits quite still, on his face a new ecstacy.

CURTAIN.

IF SHAKESPEARE LIVED TO-DAY

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ

Mr. Gleek , Editor of the "Banner and Evening Gazette" and member of the Olympus .

Scene

Sir Webley Woothery-Jurnip and Mr. Neeks sit by a small table. Further away sits Mr. Gleek , the Editor of the "Banner and Evening Gazette." Sir Webley Jurnip rises and rings the bell by the fire-place. He returns to his seat.

Mr. Neeks : I see there's a man called Mr. William Shakespeare putting up for the Club.

Sir Webley : Shakespeare? Shakespeare? Shakespeare? I once knew a man called Shaker.

Sir Webley : And, Jergins—there's a man called Mr. William Shakespeare putting up for the Club.

Sir Webley : Yes, Jergins. Well, there it is, you see; and I want you to go up and ask Mr. Trundleben if he'd come down.

Sir Webley : Oh, I don't know, he was seventy only the other day. I don't call that too old—nowadays. He can't be now, he can't be more than, let me see, seventy-eight. Where does this Mr. Shaker live?

Neeks : Shakespeare. Somewhere down in Warwickshire. A village called Bradford, I think, is the address he gives in the Candidates' Book.

Sir Webley : Warwickshire! I do seem to remember something about him now. If he's the same man I certainly do. William Shakespeare, you said.

Sir Webley : Yes, a poacher. Trundleben deserves to get the sack for this. A poacher from the wilds of Warwickshire. I heard all about him. He got after the deer at Charlecote.

Sir Webley : That's all he is, a poacher. A member of the Olympus! He'll be dropping in here one fine day with other people's rabbits in his pockets.

Jergins : Mr. Trundleben will be down at once, Sir Webley. I telephoned up to him.

Sir Webley : Telephoned! Telephoned! The Club's getting more full of new-fangled devices every day. I remember the time when—— Thank you, Jergins.

Trundleben : Thank you, Sir Webley. I think I will. I don't walk quite as well as I used, and what with——

Trundleben : Oh, ah, well yes, yes indeed. Well, you see, Sir Webley, he was put up for the Club. Mr. Henry put him up.

Trundleben : Well then, what does Mr. Newton do but go and second him, and there you are, Sir Webley.

Trundleben : I asked him that, Sir Webley, and he said ... he sent me a list ( fumbling ). Ah, here it is.

[ He holds it high, far from his face, tilts his head back and looks down his nose through his glasses.

He says—let me see—"Hamelt," or "Hamlet," I don't know how he pronounces it. "Hamelt, Hamlet"; he spells it "H-a-m-l-e-t." If you pronounce it the way one pronounces handle, it would be "Hamelt," but if——

Sir Webley : Well, I wouldn't so much mind where the scene of the play was put, if only it was a play one ever had heard of.

Neeks : But those men who have much to do with neutrals are rather the men—don't you think, Sir Webley?—who ...

Sir Webley : Who want watching. I believe you're right, Neeks. And that type of unsuccessful play-wright is just the kind of man I always rather ...

Sir Webley : Yes, and if he's all right there's no harm done, but I always suspect that kind of fellow. Well, what else, Trundleben? This is getting interesting.

Trundleben : Well, Sir Webley, it's really very funny, but he sent me a list of the characters in this play of his, "Hamelt," and, and it's really rather delicious——

Trundleben : He's got a ghost in his play. ( He-he-he-he-he ) A ghost! He really has.

Trundleben : I met Mr. Vass the other day—it was his four hundredth presentation of "The Nighty"—and I told him about it. He said that bringing a ghost on the stage was, of course—er—ludicrous.

Trundleben ( focussing his list again ): Here's a very funny one. This is funnier than "Hamlet." "The Tempest." And the stage directions are "The sea, with a ship."

Sir Webley ( laughs ): Oh, that's lovely! That's really too good. The sea with a ship! And what's it all about?

Trundleben : Well, I rather gathered that it was about a magician, and he—he makes a storm.

Sir Webley : Ha, ha! Very good! He'd have to be a magician to do that, Trundleben.

Sir Webley : But that stage direction is priceless. I'd really like to copy that down if you'd let me. What is it? "The sea with a ship"? It's the funniest bit of the lot.

Trundleben : Yes, that's it, Sir Webley. Wait a moment, I have it here. The—the whole thing is "the sea with a ship, afterwards an island." Very funny indeed.

Sir Webley : "Afterwards an island"! That's very good, too. "Afterwards an island." I'll put that down also. ( He writes. ) And what else, Trundleben? What else?

Neeks : I—I—well I'm not quite sure; I really don't think so. But I'll look it up.

Sir Webley : Oh, I don't say it wasn't. No doubt. No doubt at all. That's one thing. But to call his whole life a tragedy is—is quite another. What, Neeks?

Trundleben : Oh, certainly, Sir Webley. Tragedy is—er—is a very strong term indeed, to—to apply to such a case.

Sir Webley : He was probably out poaching when he should have been learning his history.

Trundleben : Well, there's one called ... Oh. I'd really rather not mention that one; perhaps that had better be left out altogether.

Trundleben : Left out altogether. And then there are "Sonnets," and—and "Venus and Adonis," and—and "The Phœnix and the Turtle."

Trundleben : One called "The Passionate Pilgrim," another "A Lover's Complaint."

Trundleben ( mournfully ): And there've been no poets since poor Browning died, none at all. It's absurd for him to call himself a poet.

Sir Webley : And all these plays. What does he mean by calling them plays? They've never been acted.

Trundleben : Well, I believe they were acted in America, though of course not in London.

Sir Webley : In America? What's that got to do with it. America? Why, that's the other side of the Atlantic.

Sir Webley : America! I daresay they did. I daresay they did act them. But that doesn't make him a suitable member for the Olympus. Quite the contrary.

Sir Webley : I daresay "Macbeth" would be the sort of thing that would appeal to Irish Americans. Just the sort of thing.

Sir Webley : Their game laws are very lax, I believe, over there; they probably took to him on account of his being a poacher.

Sir Webley : Well now, Trundleben; are we to ask the Olympus to elect a man who'll come in here with his pockets bulging with rabbits.

Sir Webley : Thank God the Olympus can get its haunch of venison without having to go to a man like that for it.

Sir Webley : Well now, about those plays. I don't say we've absolute proof that the man's entirely hopeless. We must be sure of our ground.

Trundleben : Oh, I'm afraid Sir Webley, they're very bad indeed. There are some quite unfortunate—er—references in them.

Trundleben : For instance, in that play about that funny ship—I have a list of the characters here—and I'm afraid, well—er,—er you see for yourself. ( Hands paper. ) You see that is, I am afraid, in very bad taste, Sir Webley.

Sir Webley : A very deserving class. A—a quite gratuitous slight. I don't say you mightn't see one drunken butler ...

Sir Webley : But to put it boldly on a programme like that is practically tantamount to implying that all butlers are drunken.

Sir Webley : There would naturally be a protest of some sort, and to have a member of the Olympus mixed up with a controversy like that would be—er—naturally—er—most ...

Trundleben : I haven't gone through his whole list, Sir Webley. I often feel about these modern writers that perhaps the less one looks the less one will find that might be, er ...

Sir Webley : Well, we can't wade all through his list of characters to see if they are all suitable to be represented on a stage.

Trundleben : Oh no, Sir Webley, quite impossible; there are—there are—I might say—hundreds of them.

Neeks : The Banner and Evening Gazette would know all about him if there's anything to know.

Sir Webley : Well, Trundleben, you may leave it to us. Mr. Neeks and I will talk it all over and see what's to be done.

Trundleben : Thank you, Sir Webley. I'm really very sorry it all happened—very sorry indeed.

Sir Webley : Very well, Trundleben, we'll see what's to be done. If nothing's known of him and his plays, you'll have to write and request him to withdraw his candidature. But we'll see. We'll see.

Trundleben : Thank you, Sir Webley. I'm sure I'm very sorry it all occurred. Thank you, Mr. Neeks.

Sir Webley : Well, Neeks, that's what it will have to be. If nothing whatever's known of him we can't have him putting up for the Olympus.

[ He begins to rise, hopefully looking Gleek-wards, when Jergins comes between him and Mr. Gleek . He has come to take away the coffee.

Neeks : Yes. I'll call Mr. Gleek's attention. He knows all about that sort of thing.

CURTAIN.

FAME AND THE POET

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ

( This name, though of course of French origin, has become anglicised and is pronounced de Reevs .)

Scene

Prattle : Well, I wanted to see if I could get one or two decent ties to wear—you can get nothing out there—then I thought I'd have a look and see how London was getting on.

de Reves : Oh, I don't know. Some people seem to like my stuff, rather. That's why I go on.

de Reves : Ah, but then it's hardly in your line, is it? You'd hardly approve of poetry if there was money in it.

Prattle : Oh, I don't say that. If I could make as much by poetry as I can by betting I don't say I wouldn't try the poetry touch, only——

de Reves : Well, yes. I suppose it's easier to tell what an earthly horse is going to do, than to tell what Pegasus——

de Reves : In our trade we believe in all fabulous things. They all represent some large truth to us. An emblem like Pegasus is as real a thing to a poet as a Derby winner would be to you.

Prattle : I say. (Give me a cigarette. Thanks.) What? Then you'd believe in nymphs and fauns, and Pan, and all those kind of birds?

de Reves : Four million people or so made him Lord Mayor, didn't they? And he represents to them the wealth and dignity and tradition of——

de Reves : Well, he stands for an idea to them, and they made him Lord Mayor, and so he is one....

de Reves : In the same way Pan has been made what he is by millions; by millions to whom he represents world-old traditions.

Prattle ( rising from his chair and stepping backwards, laughing and looking at the Poet in a kind of assumed wonder ): I say ... I say ... You old heathen ... but Good Lord ...

[ The Poet walks towards Prattle and the screen. He protests no further. Prattle looks round the corner of the screen.

de Reves ( removing the screen altogether ): That is all. What do you make of it?

[ An altar of Greek design, shaped like a pedestal, is revealed. Papers litter the floor all about it.

de Reves : Keats never saw her. Shelley died too young. She came late at the best of times, now scarcely ever.

Prattle : But, my dear fellow, you don't mean that you think there really is such a person?

de Reves : We poets personify abstract things, and not poets only but sculptors 7 and painters too. All the great things of the world are those abstract things.

de Reves : To us these things are more real than men, they outlive generations, they watch the passing of kingdoms: we go by them like dust; they are still there, unmoved, unsmiling.

Prattle : But, but, you can't think that you could see Fame, you don't expect to see it?

de Reves : Not to me. Never to me. She of the golden trumpet and Greek dress will never appear to me.... We all have our dreams.

Prattle : I tell you what. You've been overworking yourself. I once got like that on board the Sandhurst, working for the passing-out exam. I got so bad that I could have seen anything.

Prattle : Lord, yes; horned pigs, snakes with wings; anything; one of your winged horses even. They gave me some stuff called bromide for it. You take a rest.

de Reves : But my dear fellow, you don't understand at all. I merely said that abstract things are to a poet as near and real and visible as one of your bookmakers or barmaids.

de Reves : Well, perhaps I will. I'd come with you to that musical comedy you're going to see, only I'm a bit tired after writing this; it's a tedious job. I'll come another night.

de Reves : Well, where would you go? Hamlet 's 8 on at the Lord Chamberlain's. You're not going there.

Prattle : Well, you're quite right. I'm going to see "The Girl from Bedlam." So long. I must push off now. It's getting late. You take a rest. Don't add another line to that sonnet; fourteen's quite enough. You take a rest. Don't have any dinner to-night, just rest. I was like that once myself. So long.

[ He rises and goes to the screen; he draws back part of it and goes up to the altar. He is about to place his sonnet reverently at the foot of the altar amongst his other verses.

If that sonnet does not give me fame, nothing that I have done before will give it to me, nothing that I ever will do.

[ He replaces the screen and returns to his chair at the table. Twilight is coming on. He sits with his elbow on the table, his head on his hand, or however the actor pleases.

Well, well. Fancy seeing Dick again. Well, Dick enjoys his life, so he's no fool. What was that he said? "There's no money in poetry. You'd better chuck it." Ten years' work and what have I to show for it? The admiration of men who care for poetry, and how many of them are there? There's a bigger demand for smoked glasses to look at eclipses of the sun. Why should Fame come to me? Haven't I given up my days for her? That is enough to keep her away. I am a poet; that is enough reason for her to slight me. Proud and aloof and cold as marble, what does Fame care for us? Yes, Dick is right. It's a poor game chasing illusions, hunting the intangible, pursuing dreams. Dreams? Why, we are ourselves dreams.

[ As he lifts his head and says these words, twilight gives place to broad daylight, merely as a hint that the author of the play may have been mistaken, and the whole thing may have been no more than a poet's dream.

So it was, and it's an untidy mess there ( looking at screen ) too. Dick's right. I'll tidy it up. I'll burn the whole damned heap,

[ He pushes back the screen. Fame in a Greek dress with a long golden trumpet in her hand is seen standing motionless on the altar like a marble goddess.

[ He holds up his hand to her and leads her down from the altar and into the centre of the stage. At whatever moment the actor finds it most convenient, he repossesses himself of the sonnet that he had placed on the altar. He now offers it to Fame .

[ Fame takes it and reads it in silence, while the Poet watches her rapturously.

Fame ( in a voice with which a woman in an upper storey would cry for help if the house was well alight ): Hi! Hi! Boys! Hi! Say, folks! Hi!

de Reves : Wouldn't 9 you perhaps ... would they care to hear my sonnet, if you would—er ...

The Crowd : Hip hip hip, hooray!
Hip hip hip, hooray!
Hip hip hip, hooray!

de Reves : For ten years, divine lady, I have worshipped you, offering all my songs ... I find ... I find I am not worthy....

de Reves : No, no, I am not worthy. It cannot be. It cannot possibly be. Others deserve you more. I must say it! I cannot possibly love you. Others are worthy. You will find others. But I, no, no, no. It cannot be. It cannot be. Oh, pardon me, but it must not.

[ Meanwhile Fame has been lighting one of his cigarettes. She sits in a comfortable chair, leans right back, and puts her feet right up on the table amongst the poet's papers.

CURTAIN.

[Transcriber's Note: Footnotes indicate where typographical errors in the original edition have been corrected.]

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