Writing for Vaudeville · Chapter 23Part 23
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PHONSIE: (Business.) Mommer! Mommer! Are you there? (Blows pea blower at her.)
GLADYS: (Hand to cheek where he hit her.) Yes, dolling, mommer is here.
PHONSIE: Say, mommer, am I dying? (Loud and toughly.)
GLADYS: (Sadly.) I am afraid not, my treasure.
PHONSIE: Why not, mommer?
GLADYS: You are too great a pest to die, sweetheart.
PHONSIE: But the good always die young, don't they, mommer?
GLADYS: (Still sewing.) But you were not speaking about the good—you were speaking of yourself, my precious.
PHONSIE: Ain't I good, mommer, don't you think?
GLADYS: (Business.) Oh, I don't dare to think!!!! (Moves up stage.)
PHONSIE: Don't think if it hurts you, mommer.
GLADYS: (At dresser.) But come, it is time for your medicine. (Shows enormous pill.)
PHONSIE: (Scared.) What is that, mommer?
GLADYS: Just a horse pill, baby. (Puts it in his mouth.) There, that will help cure mother's little man. (At table.)
PHONSIE: Gee! That tasted fierce. (Business. Knock.) Some one is knocking, mommer.
GLADYS: They're always knocking mommer. (At door.)
VOICE: Have yez th' rint?
GLADYS: I haven't.
VOICE: Much obliged.
GLADYS: You're welcome.
PHONSIE: Who was that, mommer?
GLADYS: That was only the landlord for the rent. Alas, I cannot raise it.
PHONSIE: Then if you can't raise the rent, raise me, mommer. Can't I have the spot-light to die with?
GLADYS: Why certainly you shall have one. Mr. Electrician, will you kindly give my dying child a spot-light? (Business.) There, dearest, there's your spot-light.
PHONSIE: (Laughs.) Oh, that's fine. Mommer, can I have visions?
GLADYS: Why surely, dear, you can have all the visions you want. (Shoves opium pipe in his mouth and lights it.) Now tell mommer what you see, baby!
PHONSIE: Oh, mommer, I see awful things. I can see the Gerry society pinching me. And oh, mommer, I can see New York, [1] and there ain't a gambling house in the town.
[1] Substitute name of any big city.
GLADYS: He's blind!!!! My child's gone blind!!!! (PHONSIE snores.) He sleeps at last, my child, my little dying child!!!! (Enter ALGERNON and BIRDIE.)
GLADYS: (Discovers ALGERNON.) You!!!! (ALGERNON turns to Orchestra and conducts Chord with cane.) (GLADYS Left, ALGERNON C., BIRDIE R.)
ALGERNON: (Chord.) Yes, Gladys Dressuitcase, once more we meet!!!!!
GLADYS: And the lady with the Brooklyn [1] gown!! Ah, you will start, but I know you in spite of your disguise, Birdie Bedslatz.
[1] Substitute name of the local gag town.
BIRDIE: Disguise! What disguise?
GLADYS: Woman, you cannot deceive me. You've been to the dry-dock and had your face scraped.
BIRDIE: So, you still want war?
GLADYS: No, I want justice!!!! (ALGERNON conducts Chord.) You have tracked me like sleuthhounds. You have hunted me down after all these years. You have robbed me of home, husband, honor and friends. What then is left me? (L.)
BIRDIE: (Menacingly.) There is always the river.
GLADYS: What, you dare suggest that, you with your past!
BIRDIE: How dare you mention that to me! I am now writing Sunday stories for the New York "American." [2] (Crosses to left and sits.)
[2] Substitute name of the local sensational newspaper.
GLADYS: (Stunned.) Sophie Lyons, now I see it all.
ALGERNON: (Center.) I have here a mortgage.
GLADYS: A mortgage!!!! What is it on?
ALGERNON: I don't know. What difference does that make? It is a mortgage. That's all that's necessary.
GLADYS: Can it be a mortgage on the old farm?
ALGERNON: (Moves over to R.) Certainly, on the old farm!!!! The dear old homestead in New Hampshire. (Takes paper from pocket. Crosses over to GLADYS.) I have also the paper that always goes with the mortgage. Sign this paper and the mortgage shall be yours, refuse—and—do you mind my coming closer so that I can hiss this in your ear?
GLADYS: Not at all, come right over.
ALGERNON: (Close to GLADYS.) Refuse (Hiss), I say, and you and your child shall be thrown into the streets to starve. (Hiss.)
GLADYS: (Crosses R.) Oh, I must have time to drink—I mean think. But this is infamous. The landlord will—
ALGERNON: I am the landlord. Now will you sign the papers?
GLADYS: No, a thousand times no!!!!! (Chord.) (ALGERNON conducts Chord.) No!!!!
BIRDIE: (Hand to ear.) Good gracious, don't scream so, where do you think you are?
ALGERNON: You won't sign?
GLADYS: No, do your worst, throw me into the street with my child. He is sick, dying!!!!
ALGERNON: What's the matter with him? (Goes to bed.) (PHONSIE is heaving and whistling.) Great heavens, he has the heaves. (Goes R.)
BIRDIE: What are you doing for him?
GLADYS: Trying the hot air treatment.
BIRDIE: I should think you would be expert at that.
GLADYS: The doctor says he has grey matter in his brain.
BIRDIE: (Comes down L.) I am sorry, very sorry.
ALGERNON: Sorry! Bah, this is a cheap play for sympathy! (To GLADYS:) Will you sign the papers?
GLADYS: Never, I defy you: (To BIRDIE.) As for you, beautiful fiend that you are, you came between me and my husband; you stole him from me with your dog-faced beauty; I mean doll-faced. But I can see your finish, I can see you taking poison in about fifteen minutes.
BIRDIE: (Over to ALGERNON.) Put me wise, is this true?
ALGERNON: No, 'tis false, false as hell!!!!! (Points up.)
GLADYS: It's true, as true as heaven. (Points down.) I swear it.
ALGERNON: (Crosses up to GLADYS.) Why, curse you, I'll—
GLADYS: (With pistol.) Stand back!!!!! I'm a desperate woman!!!!!
ALGERNON: (Center.) Foiled, curse the luck, foiled by a mere slip of a girl.
BIRDIE: What's to be done?
ALGERNON: (Yells.) Silence!!!! (Business.) Once aboard the lugger the girl must and shall be mine!!!!
BIRDIE: But how do you propose to lug her there? (ALGERNON moves up to door.)
GLADYS: Oh, I see it all. You have brought this she-devil here to work off her bad gags on me. Man, have you no heart?
ALGERNON: (Comes down C.) Of course I have a heart. I have also eyes, ears, nose, tongue and—
BIRDIE: Brains, calves' brains—breaded.
ALGERNON: That will be about all from you. Go, leave us!
BIRDIE: Alone?
ALGERNON: Alone!
GLADYS: Alone!
PHONSIE: (In sepulchral tone.) Oh, Gee!
BIRDIE: But it's hardly decent. You need a tamer.
ALGERNON: Go! (Crosses to R.) Go, I say, before it is too late.
BIRDIE: Oh, there's no hurry. Every place is open.
ALGERNON: Don't sass me, Birdie Bedslatz, but clear out, scat!!!!
BIRDIE: Ain't he the awful scamp? (Starts to door.)
GLADYS: (Clinging to her.) No, you cannot, must not go. Don't leave me alone with that piano mover.
BIRDIE: I must go. I have poison to buy. (At door.) Ah, Algernon O'Flaherty, if there was more men in the world like you, there'd be less women like me—I just love to say that. Ta—ta. (PHONSIE blows pea-shooter at her as she Exits. She screams and grabs cheek.)
ALGERNON: (To GLADYS back.) So, proud beauty, at last we are alone!
GLADYS: Inhuman monster!!! What new villainy do you propose?
ALGERNON: None, it's all old stuff. Listen, Gladys. When I see you again, all the old love revives and I grow mad, mad.
GLADYS: You dare to speak of love to me? Why, from the first moment I saw you, I despised you. And now I tell you to your face that I hate and loathe you, for the vile, contemptible wretch that you are.
ALGERNON: (Center.) Be careful, girl! I can give you wealth, money, jewels—jewels fit for a king's ransom.
GLADYS: (Runs into his arms.) Oh, you can—Where are they?
ALGERNON: They are in hock for the moment, but see, here are the tickets. I shall get them out, anon.
GLADYS: Dastardly wretch!!!!! With your pawn tickets to try and cop out a poor sewing girl. (Up at door.) There is the door, go! (Points other way.)
ALGERNON: (Up to her.) Why curse you, I'll—
GLADYS: Strike, you coward! (Chord.) (ALGERNON conducts Chord.)
ALGERNON: Coward!!!! (He conducts same Chord an Octave higher.)
GLADYS: Yes, coward. . . . Now go, and never cross this threshold again!!
ALGERNON: (Going up stage.) So, I'm fired with the threshold gag? Very well, I go, but I shall return. . . . I shall return! (Exits.)
PHONSIE: (Blows pea-blower after him.) Who was that big stiff, mommer, the instalment man?
GLADYS: No, darling, he is the floor-walker in a slaughter house.
PHONSIE: Mommer, when do I eat?
GLADYS: Alas, we cannot buy food, we are penniless.
PHONSIE: If you would only put your jewels in soak, mommer.
GLADYS: What, hock me sparks? Never! I may starve, yes, but I'll starve like a lady in all my finery!
PHONSIE: Mommer, I want to eat.
GLADYS: What shall I do? My child hungry, dying, without even the price of a shave! Oh, my heart is like my brother on the railroad, breaking—breaking—breaking—(Weeps.)
PHONSIE: Ah, don't cry, mommer. You'll have the whole place damp. You keep on sewing and I'll keep on dying.
GLADYS: Very well. (Drying eyes.) But first I'll go out and get a can of beer. Thank goodness, we always have beer money.
PHONSIE: Oh yes, mommer, do rush the growler. Me coppers is toastin'. And don't forget your misery cape and the music that goes with you, will you, mommer?
GLADYS: I'll get those.
PHONSIE: And you'd better take some handkerchiefs. You may want to cry. But don't cry in the beer, mommer, it makes it flat.
GLADYS: Thank you, baby, I do love to weep. Oh, if we only had a blizzard, I'd take you out in your nightie. But wait, sweetheart, wait till it goes below zero. Then you shall go out with mommer, bare-footed.
PHONSIE: Don't stand chewing the rag with the bartender, will you, mommer?
GLADYS: Only till he puts a second head on the beer. (Exit R.)
PHONSIE: Gee, it's fierce to be a stage child and dying. I wonder where my popper is? I want my popper—I want my popper. (Bawls.)
MOE REISS: (Enters.) Why, what is the matter, my little man?
PHONSIE: Oh, I'm so lonely, I want my popper.
MOE REISS: And where is your popper?
PHONSIE: Mommer says he is in Philadelphia. (Sniffles.)
MOE REISS: (Lifts hat reverently.) Dead, and his child doesn't know. And where is your mama?
PHONSIE: Oh, she's went out to chase the can.
MOE REISS: And what is your name, my little man?
PHONSIE: Alphonso. Ain't that practically the limit?
MOE REISS: Alphonso? I once had a little boy named Alphonso, who might have been about your age.
PHONSIE: And what prevented him?
MOE REISS: (Sighs.) Alas, I lost him!
PHONSIE: That was awful careless of you. You oughtn't to have took him out without his chain. (Sniffs.)
MOE REISS: What's the matter with your nose?
PHONSIE: I have the glanders—and the heaves. I get all the horse diseases. Father was a race track tout.
MOE REISS: A race track tout? What is your last name?
PHONSIE: Dressuitcase, Alphonso Dressuitcase.
MOE REISS: Dressuitcase? And have you heavy shingle marks on your person, great blue welts?
PHONSIE: You bet I have, and my popper put them there, too.
MOE REISS: Why, it's my boy, Phonsie, my little Phonsie. Don't you know me? It's popper. (Slams him in face hard with open hand.)
PHONSIE: Well, your style is familiar, but you don't need to show off!
GLADYS: (Enters. Carrying Growler carefully.) Moe! Moe! My husband! (Buries face in can.)
MOE REISS: Gladys! Gladys! My wife! (Takes can from GLADYS.)
PHONSIE: (Comes between them.) Here, I want to have my fever reduced. (Back to bed.)
GLADYS: Where have you been all these years, Moe?
MOE REISS: Just bumming around, just bumming around. When I deserted you and copped out Birdie Bedslatz, I went from bad to worse, from Jersey City to Hoboken. [1] When my senses returned, I was insane.
[1] Local.
GLADYS: My poor husband, how you must have suffered!
MOE REISS: At heart, I was always true to you and our little boy, and I want to come back home.
GLADYS: But tell me, Moe, how are you fixed? (Tries to feel his vest pocket.)
MOE REISS: Fine, I am running a swell gambling joint.
GLADYS: Splendid! Now, Phonsie shall have proper nourishment.
MOE REISS: He shall have all the food he can eat. (Up to bed.)
GLADYS: Yes, and all the beer he can drink.
MOE REISS: Great heavens, I could never pay for that.
GLADYS: Ah, then he will have to cut out his souse. Dear little chap; he loved to get tanked up. Oh look at him, Moe, he is the living image of you. I think if he lives, he will be a great bull fighter. (PHONSIE has finished the beer, and is sucking at a nipple on large bottle marked "Pure Rye.")
MOE REISS: Then he does take after me—dear little chap. (Hits him.)
GLADYS: Indeed he does. But is it safe for you to come here, Moe?
MOE REISS: Not with Whitman [1] on my trail. You know, Gladys, in the eyes of the world, I am guilty.
[1] Local District Attorney.
GLADYS: Then the world lies. (Chord. ALGERNON comes on from R. I and conducts and then Exits.) I still trust you, my husband, though the police want you for stealing moth balls. (Crash off.) What's that? (Runs to door.) Oh, it's the health department. They have come with the garbage wagon to arrest you. Quick, in there. (Points to door R.)
MOE REISS: No, let them come. I am here to see my wife and here I shall remain.
GLADYS: But for our child's sake. See, he holds up his little hands and pleads for you to go. (PHONSIE in pugilistic attitude.)
PHONSIE: Say, pop, if you don't get a wiggle on and duck in there, there'll be something doing. (Business.)
MOE REISS: My boy, I can refuse you nothing. (Exits.)
GLADYS: (At door C.) They are sneaking up, on rubbers! (To PHONSIE.) Lie down, Fido. (Guarding door R. Enter ALGERNON and BIRDIE, Door C.)
ALGERNON: There's some hellish mystery here!
BIRDIE: You can search me.
ALGERNON: (Sees GLADYS.) Aha! Now will you sign those papers?
GLADYS: Never. (Bus.) I'll sign nothing. (Down R.)
ALGERNON: (Takes carrot from his hip pocket.) You won't? There, curse you, take that. (Hits her in neck with carrot.)
GLADYS: In the neck! In the neck, where I always get it!
ALGERNON: (Center.) Quick, Birdie, seize the child and run.
BIRDIE: (Left, looks scornfully at PHONSIE.) You've got your nerve. He weighs a ton!!
PHONSIE: Oh! She's going to kidnap me!! Assistance!!
ALGERNON: Silence!! Enough!! (To GLADYS.) I have just come from the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
GLADYS: Well?
ALGERNON: I have reported to them that your child has the heaves.
GLADYS: Well?
ALGERNON: The Society is sending a horse ambulance to take him to the dump.
GLADYS: Dump? To the dump?!!! No, no, it's a cruel, hideous jest! Take away my little dying boy? It would kill him, you understand, it would kill him!!
PHONSIE: (Toughly.) Sure, it would kill me!! (Bites off big chew of Tobacco.)
ALGERNON: Nevertheless, in five minutes the horse ambulance will be here.
GLADYS: Oh no! no! no! What if my child should die?
ALGERNON: Then they will make glue out of his carcass.
GLADYS: Glue. Aw! (Shakes snow on herself from box hanging over the table L.)
PHONSIE: I don't want to be no glue, mommer, I'd be all stuck up.
GLADYS: (Goes C. to PHONSIE.) Why this fiendish plot? What have I done that you thus pursue me?
ALGERNON: (R. C.) You repulsed my hellish caresses.
GLADYS: Oh, I will do anything to save my child. I'll try to love you. . . . I will love! See? (Business.) (Into his arms.) I love you now!
MOE REISS: (Enter, center.) What's this? My wife in that man's arms? Oh! (Crosses L.)
GLADYS: (At right, to MOE REISS.) Oh, Moe, I can explain. (Grabs his throat and shakes him.)
MOE REISS: (To GLADYS.) Explain!!! How? I go away and desert you for eight years. (Turns from her and goes L.) In that short absence you forget your husband. (Turns to her.) I return to find you in his arms, before my very nose. (Smashes PHONSIE in face.) (Business.) (He sees BIRDIE.) You, Birdie!
BIRDIE: Yes, I, little Birdie—Birdie on the spot.
MOE REISS: Ah, you she-fiend, you lady demon! (Kisses her.)
GLADYS: (Screams.) No, no! (Runs to him.) It's all a plot! A hideous plot to part us! This man has complained to the S. P. C. A. that our little Phonsie has the heaves. They are sending a horse ambulance to take him to the dump! They'll make glue out of his carcass! (To ALGERNON.) You see what you have done! (Beats him on back.) Tell my husband, you devil, tell him the truth!!!
ALGERNON: (To MOE REISS) (C.) Well, if you must know the truth, your wife loves me and was forcing her caresses upon me when you entered.
MOE REISS: It's true then, it's true?
PHONSIE: (Sits up.) No, popper, it's false, and I can prove it.
ALGERNON: The child is delirious from the heaves!
PHONSIE: I'll heave you out of here in a minute. Listen, popper, mommer's done the best she could. It ain't easy to nurse a dying child who is liable to croak at any moment. But she's done that, popper, she's often went without her dill pickle so I could have my spavin cure. She thought I might get well and strong and maybe get a job as a safe mover. But I've been so busy dying I couldn't go to work. (Shakes fist at ALGERNON.) Don't believe that man, popper; I'm dying, cross my heart if I ain't dying, so I couldn't tell a lie. (Back to bed.)
MOE REISS: Oh, my boy! My boy! (heart-brokenly.) (Hits PHONSIE.)
GLADYS: Dh, Moe Reiss, don't you believe him?
ALGERNON: (Left of C.) Of course not, he saw you with your arms around my neck.
MOE REISS: Yes, I saw it, I seen it.
BIRDIE: I can swear to it, if necessary.
PHONSIE: I can swear too, popper, want to hear me?
MOE REISS: No, I have heard enough. Now I intend to act. (Throws off coat, L.)
ALGERNON: What do you mean?
MOE REISS: I mean that either you or I will never leave this place alive. For I tell you plainly, as sure as there is a poker game above us, I mean to kill you!
ALGERNON: (Throws off coat and hat.) Well, if it's a roughhouse you're looking for, I'm right there with the goods. (Struggle.)
PHONSIE: Give him an upper cut, popper, soak him!!!
BIRDIE: Knife him, Algernon, knife him! (Has out her hat pin.) (During struggle, PHONSIE shoots three times.) (As they struggle to window, ALGERNON turns back, and PHONSIE sees [after third shot] his vest is a target and fires three times. Bell on each shot.) Curse you, you've got me. Here are your three cigars. (Falls dead, C.)
MOE REISS: (Kneels and feels heart.) Dead!!! Who could have done this?
PHONSIE: Father, I cannot tell a lie, I done it with my little hatchet. (Shows big gun and a picture of George Washington. All the others lift American flags and wave them.) (PHONSIE L. waving flag, MOE and GLADYS C. BIRDIE dead in chair R.)
BY EDGAR ALLAN WOOLF Author of "Youth," "Little Mother," "Mon Desir," "The Locks at Panama," "Lady Gossip," Etc., Etc.
TIME: About 2 A.M.
When the curtain rises, the stage is dark. First, "feminine snores" are heard, then a sharp ringing of bell. Then MISS CAREY from her bed in next room (curtained off, but partly visible) calls out:
MISS CAREY: Who is it?
VOICE: (Off stage.) It's me. Open!
MISS CAREY: (Poking her night-capped head out of curtains.) Well, who are you?
VOICE: (Off stage.) You don't know me. But that's all right. Please let me in—hurry! Hurry!
MISS CAREY: (Rising and getting into a kimono.) Well—whoever you are—what do you mean by waking me at two in the morning? I'll report this to the janitor. (She turns up light and opens door. ANGELA MAXWELL rushes in—in fluffy peignoir—her hair in pretty disorder—her hands full of wearing apparel, etc., as if she just snatched same up in haste. An opera coat, a pair of slippers, etc.)
ANGELA: (Rushing in—closing door after her and silencing MISS CAREY by the mysterious way she seizes her by the wrist.) Listen, you don't know me, but I've just left my husband.
MISS CAREY: (Sharply.) Well, that's no reason why I should leave my bed.
ANGELA: (Reassuringly.) You can go right back again, dear—in fact, I'll go with you and we'll talk it over there.
MISS CAREY: I don't wish to talk it over anywhere, and—
ANGELA: Well, surely, you don't think it was wrong of me to leave Harry—now do you?
MISS CAREY: I never blame any woman for leaving any man.
ANGELA: See, I knew it. After I fired the Wedgewood vase at him—and just for doing it he was brute enough to call me "Vixen,"— I snatched up as much as I could that was worth taking, and left him forever. (Suddenly, as she sees dress on model.) Oh, what a lovely little frock. (Back to other tone.) Yes, forever; and it was only when I stood out in the cold hall that I realized it would have been better to have left him forever when I was all dressed in the morning. (Beginning to shiver and weep.) Take my advice, dear, if you ever leave your husband, never do it on a cold night.
MISS CAREY: (Sharply.) I'm not married.
ANGELA: (Weeping copiously and shivering.) Well, then, you needn't bother, dear, about the weather, 'cause you never will be married.
MISS CAREY: No, I never will—catch me selling my freedom to any selfish brute of a man.
ANGELA: (As before.) See, I knew it. I said to myself, that little lady on the second floor who makes dresses with a long, thin nose—
MISS CAREY: (Outraged.) Makes dresses with a long, thin nose?
ANGELA: Yes—she's the only one in the whole apartment house I can go to—she's the only one won't give Harry right.
MISS CAREY: No man is ever right.
ANGELA: I'm commencing to believe all men are brutes.
MISS CAREY: Of course they are. (Commencing to thaw.) Have a cup of tea. (She goes to table to prepare tea things.)
ANGELA: Thanks—I brought my own tea with me. (Takes a little paper bag of tea out of one of the slippers and crosses to MISS CAREY.) If I had struck him with the vase, I could understand his calling me "Vixen" (Beginning to weep again.)—but I only flung it at him, 'cause I cracked it by accident in the morning, and I didn't want him to find it out. He was always calling me "butter-fingers." (Sits at opposite side of table.)
MISS CAREY: Oh, he was always calling you names.
ANGELA: No, that's all he ever called me—"Butter-fingers." (Cries again.)
MISS CAREY: (Pouring tea.) Oh, he's the kind that just loves to stay home and nag.
ANGELA: I'd like to catch any husband I ever get, nag.
MISS CAREY: Oh, a pouter—I know that kind.
ANGELA: Oh, no. Why, every time I insulted him he kissed me—the brute. (After a second's pause.) But—excuse me—how do you know so many kinds of men if you've never been married?
MISS CAREY: (Quickly.) Boarders—to make ends meet, I've always had to have a male boarder since I was left an orphan. (She rises—turns her back to audience—gives a touch to her pigtail, during the laugh to this line. This business always builds laugh.)
ANGELA: (Absent-mindedly.) Well, I've heard that male boarders are very nice.
MISS CAREY: I've never had a nice one yet, but I've named nearly all the style male brutes there are. What kind of a brute have you? (She sips tea.)
ANGELA: Why, I don't know—I've often wondered—you might call Harry a "lollard."
MISS CAREY: A lollard?
ANGELA: Yes, I invented the word, and believe me, a woman suffers with a lollard. (At this, MISS CAREY lets her spoon fall in cup.)
MISS CAREY: I should think she would. How did a sweet young thing like you ever meet such a type of a vertebrate?
ANGELA: At a military ball, and oh Mrs.—
MISS CAREY: Miss Carey.
ANGELA: Miss Carey—he was the handsomest specimen. His hair looked so spick—his shoulders were so big and broad—his teeth so white—and his skin, well, Miss Carey, if you'd seen him, I'll bet you'd have just gone crazy to kiss him yourself. (MISS CAREY, who is drinking tea, nearly chokes on this—coughing on the tea which goes down the wrong way.)
MISS CAREY: (After the business.) How did he lose his looks?
ANGELA: By becoming a lollard. Listen! (They pull chairs in front of table together, teacups in hand.) It happened on the honeymoon— on the train—as we sat hand in hand, when all at once, the wind through the window, started to blow his hair the wrong way, and oh, Miss Carey, what do you think I discovered?
MISS CAREY: He had been branded on the head as a criminal.
ANGELA: Oh nothing so pleasant as that—but the hair that I thought grew so lovely and plentifully, had been coaxed by a wet brush from the back over the front, and from the east over to the west. (Indicates by imitating action on her own head.)
MISS CAREY: Oh, a lollard is a disappointment of the hair.
ANGELA: No, Miss Carey, no. Listen. I said, "Oh, Harry, your hair which I thought grew so evenly and plentifully all over your head really only grows in patches." He only answered, "Yes, and now that we're married, Angela, I don't have to fool you by brushing it fancy anymore." In despair, I moaned "Yes, Harry—fool me—go on love, fool me and brush it fancy."
MISS CAREY; (Rising and crossing R.) That was your first mistake. No woman should ever call any man "love."
ANGELA: Oh, I didn't know what I said—I was so busy the whole journey pulling his hair from the back to the front and the east to the west (Same business of illustrating.)—and then, oh Miss Carey, what do you think was the next thing I discovered?
MISS CAREY: (In horror.) His teeth only grew in patches.
ANGELA: No, but I had fallen in love with a pair of tailor's shoulder-pads—yes—when he took off his coat that night, he shrunk so, I screamed (Pause—as laugh comes here.)—thinking I was in a room with a strange man—but all he muttered was "Angie, I can loll about in easy things now, I'm married"—and that's how gradually his refined feet began to look like canal-boats—his skin only looked kissable the days he shaved—twice a week—his teeth became tobacco stained—and to-night—to-night, Miss Carey, he stopped wearing hemstitched pajamas and took to wearing canton flannel night shirts. (In depth of woe after the big laugh this gets.) Miss Carey, have you ever seen a man in a canton flannel night shirt?
MISS CAREY: (After an expression of horror.) I told you I am not married.
ANGELA: (Innocently.) Oh, excuse me, I was thinking of your boarders. (MISS CAREY screams "what" and shows herself insulted beyond words.) Is it any wonder my love for him has grown cold? Men expect a woman to primp up for them—we must always look our best to hold their love—but once they wheedle us into signing our names to the marriage contract—they think (Suddenly, seeing dress again.)—Oh Miss Carey, what do you charge for a frock like that?
MISS CAREY: I have no night rates for gowns, Mrs.—
ANGELA: Just call me Angie—'cause I probably will live with you now. (Slips her arm through MISS CAREY'S, laying her head on the older woman's shoulder.)
MISS CAREY: (Disengaging her.) We'll talk that over in the morning— if you want, you may sleep upon that couch—I'll put out the light. (She does so.) I'm going to bed—I must get a little rest. (She gives a sharp turn and goes to her room. Blue light floods stage. Through the half open curtain she is seen having trouble with her bed covers—getting them too high up, then too far down, etc. Big laughs on this business.)
ANGELA: (Taking down hair.) Miss Carey, you said you were an orphan—I'm an orphan, too. (There is no answer.) I can't tell you how I appreciate your insisting on my staying—let me make your breakfast in the morning, Miss Carey. (No answer.) Harry might at least try to find me. Aren't men brutes, Miss Carey?
MISS CAREY: (Loudly from within.) They certainly are.
ANGELA: (Lets peignoir slip off her shoulders, is in pretty silk pajamas.) In the morning, I must think how I can earn my own living. (She lies down as snores come from next room.) Miss Carey, are you asleep? (Snore.) Oh dear, she's asleep before I am—she might have waited. (A key is heard in the door—Angela sits up in alarm—as key turns, she screams.) Oh Miss Carey, wake up—someone's at the door—wake up. (Miss Carey jumps up and out of bed.)
MISS CAREY: Good Lord—what is it now? (Puts up light—the door opens, and immaculately dressed, handsome young man in evening clothes, white gloves, etc., enters—FRED SALTUS.)