Speaker 1: Chapter eleven of Day and I by Jerome K. Jerome.
Speaker 1: The slibrivox recording is in the public domain. Recording by
Speaker 1: Debon Lynn. They and I by Jerome K. Jerome. Chapter
Speaker 1: eleven I fancy Veronica is going to be an authoress.
Speaker 1: Her mother thinks this may account for many things about
Speaker 1: her that have been troubling us. The story never got far.
Speaker 1: It was laid aside for the more alluring work of playwriting,
Speaker 1: and apparently forgotten. I came across the copy book containing
Speaker 1: her rough notes the other day. There is decided flavor
Speaker 1: about them. I transcribe selections, the spelling as before being
Speaker 1: my own. The scene is laid in the moon, but
Speaker 1: everything is just the same as down here, with one exception.
Speaker 1: The children rule. The grown ups did not like it,
Speaker 1: but they cannot help it. Something has happened to them.
Speaker 1: They don't know what. And the world is as it
Speaker 1: used to be, and the sweet old story books before
Speaker 1: sin came. There are fair is that dance, or knights
Speaker 1: and witches that lure you and then turn you into things.
Speaker 1: And a dragon who lives in a cave and springs
Speaker 1: out at people and eats them so that you have
Speaker 1: to be careful, and all the animals talk, and there
Speaker 1: are giants and lots of magic, and it is the
Speaker 1: children who know everything and what to do for it,
Speaker 1: and they have to teach the grown ups, and the
Speaker 1: grown ups don't believe half of it, and are far
Speaker 1: too fond of arguing, which is a sore trial to
Speaker 1: the children. But they have patience and are just of course.
Speaker 1: The grown ups have to go to school. They have
Speaker 1: much to learn, poor things, and they hate it. They
Speaker 1: take no interest in fairy lore, and what would happen
Speaker 1: to them if they got wrecked on a desert island.
Speaker 1: They don't seem to care. And then there are languages
Speaker 1: what they will need when they come to be children
Speaker 1: and have to talk to all the animals and magic
Speaker 1: which is deep, and they hate it and say it
Speaker 1: is rot. They are full of tricks. One catches them
Speaker 1: reading trashy novels under the desk, all about love, which
Speaker 1: is wasting their children's money, and God knows it is
Speaker 1: hard enough to earn. But the children are not angry
Speaker 1: with them, remembering how they felt themselves when they were
Speaker 1: grown up. Only firm. The children give them plenty of holidays,
Speaker 1: because holidays are good for everyone. They freshen you up.
Speaker 1: But the grown ups are very stupid and do not
Speaker 1: care for sensible games such as Indians and pirates, what
Speaker 1: would sharpen their faculties and so fit them for the future.
Speaker 1: They only care to play with a ball, which is
Speaker 1: of no help to the stern realities of life. Or
Speaker 1: talk lord, how they talk. There is one grown up
Speaker 1: who is very clever. He can talk about everything, but
Speaker 1: it leads to nothing and spoils the party, so they
Speaker 1: send him to bed. And there are two grown ups,
Speaker 1: a male and a female, and they talk love all
Speaker 1: the time, even on fine days, which is maudlin. But
Speaker 1: the children are patient with them, knowing it takes all
Speaker 1: sorts to make a world, and trusting they will grow
Speaker 1: out of it. And of course there are grown ups
Speaker 1: who are good under comfort to their children, and everything
Speaker 1: the children like is good and wholesome, and everything the
Speaker 1: grown ups like is bad for them, and they mustn't
Speaker 1: have it. They clamor for tea and coffee what undermines
Speaker 1: their nervous system, and waste their money in the talk
Speaker 1: shop upon chops and turtle soup, and the children have
Speaker 1: to put them to bed and give them pills till
Speaker 1: they feel better. There is a little girl named Prue
Speaker 1: who lives with a little boy named Simon. They mean well,
Speaker 1: but haven't much sense. They have two grown ups, a
Speaker 1: male and a female, named Peter and Martha, respectively. They
Speaker 1: are just the ordinary grown ups, neither better nor worse,
Speaker 1: and much might be done with them kindness, But Prue
Speaker 1: and Simon go the wrong way to work. It is blame,
Speaker 1: blame all day long. But as for praise, oh never.
Speaker 1: One summer's day, Prue and Simon take Peter for a
Speaker 1: walk in the country and they meet a cow, and
Speaker 1: they think that's a good opportunity to test Peter's knowledge
Speaker 1: of languages, so they tell him to talk to the cow,
Speaker 1: and he talks to the cow, and the cow don't
Speaker 1: understand him, and he don't understand the cow, and they
Speaker 1: are mad with him. What is the use they say,
Speaker 1: of our paying expensive fees to have you taught the
Speaker 1: language by a first class cow, and when you come
Speaker 1: out into the country you can't talk it. And he
Speaker 1: says he did talk it, but they will not listen
Speaker 1: to him, but go on raving. And in the end
Speaker 1: it turns out it was a Jersey cow. We talked
Speaker 1: a dialect, so of course he couldn't understand it. But
Speaker 1: did they apologize, Oh, dear no. Another time. One morning
Speaker 1: at breakfast, Martha didn't like her raspberry vinegar, so she
Speaker 1: didn't drink it. And Simon came into the nursery and
Speaker 1: he saw that Martha hadn't drunk her raspberry vinegar, and
Speaker 1: he asked her why, and she said she didn't like
Speaker 1: it because it was nasty, and he said it wasn't nasty,
Speaker 1: and that she ought to like it, and how it
Speaker 1: was shocking the way grown ups nowadays grumbled that good
Speaker 1: wholesome food provided for them by their two indulgent children,
Speaker 1: and how when he was a grown up he would
Speaker 1: never have dared, and so on, all in the usual style.
Speaker 1: And to prove it wasn't nasty, he poured himself out
Speaker 1: a cupful and drank it off in a gulp, and
Speaker 1: he said it was delicious and turned pale and left
Speaker 1: the room. And Prue came into the nursery and she
Speaker 1: saw that Martha hadn't drunk her raspberry vinegar, and she
Speaker 1: asked her why, and Martha told her how she didn't
Speaker 1: like it because it was nasty and Prue told her
Speaker 1: she ought to be ashamed of herself for not liking it,
Speaker 1: because it was good for her, really very nice, and
Speaker 1: anyhow she got to like it and not get stuffing
Speaker 1: herself up with messy tea and coffee because she wouldn't
Speaker 1: have it, and there was an end of it and
Speaker 1: so on. And to prove it was all right, she
Speaker 1: poured herself out a cupful and drank it off in
Speaker 1: a gulp. And she said there was nothing wrong with it,
Speaker 1: nothing whatever, and turned pale and left the room. And
Speaker 1: it wasn't raspberry vinegar but just red ink what had
Speaker 1: got put into the raspberry vinegar decanter by an oversight.
Speaker 1: And they needn't have been ill at all if only
Speaker 1: they had listened to poor old Martha. But no, that
Speaker 1: was their fixed idea that grown ups hadn't any sense
Speaker 1: at all. What is a mistake, as one perceives. Other
Speaker 1: characters had been sketched, some of them to be abandoned
Speaker 1: after a few bold touches, the difficulty of avoiding too
Speaker 1: close a portraiture to the living original having apparently proved
Speaker 1: irksome against one such evidently, in an attempt to help
Speaker 1: Dick see himself in his true colors. I find this
Speaker 1: marginal note and pencil better not might make him ratty
Speaker 1: opposite to another obviously of missus Saint Leonard, and with
Speaker 1: instinct for alliteration, is scribbled too terribly true, she'd twigget.
Speaker 1: Another character is that of a gent with a certain
Speaker 1: gift for telling stories, some of them not bad, a
Speaker 1: promising party on the whole. Indeed, one might say, judging
Speaker 1: from description, a quite rational person when not on the
Speaker 1: ran tan but inconsistent. He is the grown up of
Speaker 1: a little girl, not beautiful, but strangely attractive, whom we
Speaker 1: will call Enid. One gathers that if all the children
Speaker 1: had been Enid's, then surely the last word in worlds
Speaker 1: had been said. She has only this one grown up
Speaker 1: of her very own. But she makes it her business
Speaker 1: to adopt and reform all the incorrigible old folk the
Speaker 1: other children have despaired of. It is all done by kindness.
Speaker 1: She is ever patient and just. Pro Among her numerous
Speaker 1: proteges is a military man, an elderly colonel until she
Speaker 1: took him in hand, the awful example of what a
Speaker 1: grown up might easily become left to the care of
Speaker 1: incompetent infants. He defies his own child, a virtuous youth,
Speaker 1: but lacking in sympathy, is rude to his little nephews
Speaker 1: and nieces, a holy terror to his governess. He uses
Speaker 1: wicked words picked up from retired pirates, of course, without
Speaker 1: understanding their terrible significance. He steals the Indian's fire water,
Speaker 1: what few can partake of with impunity, certainly not the Colonel.
Speaker 1: Can this be? He? This gibbering wreck? He hides cigars
Speaker 1: in a hollow tree and smokes on the sly. He
Speaker 1: plays truant lures other old gentlemen away from their lessons
Speaker 1: to join him. They are discovered in the woods in
Speaker 1: a cave playing whist for sixpenny points does Enid's storm
Speaker 1: and bully Rag threaten that if ever she catches him
Speaker 1: so much as looking at a cart again, she will
Speaker 1: go straight out and tell the dragon, who will, in
Speaker 1: his turn, be so shocked that, in all probability he
Speaker 1: will decide on coming back with her to kill and
Speaker 1: eat the Colonel on the spot. No, such are not
Speaker 1: her methods. Instead, she smiles indulgently. She says it is
Speaker 1: only natural for grown ups to like playing cards. She
Speaker 1: is not angry with him, and there is no need
Speaker 1: for him to run away and hide in a nasty,
Speaker 1: damp cave. She herself will play whist with him. The
Speaker 1: effect upon the Colonel is immediate. He bursts into tears.
Speaker 1: She plays wisps with him in the garden after school hours,
Speaker 1: when he has been good. Double dummy. One presumes one
Speaker 1: leaves the colonel in the end cured of his passion
Speaker 1: for whist, whether as the consequence of her play or
Speaker 1: her influence. The rough notes give no indication in the play,
Speaker 1: I am inclined to think Veronica received assistance. The house
Speaker 1: had got itself finished early in September, young, but has
Speaker 1: certainly done wonders. We performed it in the empty billiard room,
Speaker 1: followed by a one act piece of my own. The
Speaker 1: occasion did duty as a house. We had quite a
Speaker 1: crowd and ended up with a dance. Everybody seemed to
Speaker 1: enjoy themselves, except young Bertie Saint Leonard, who played the
Speaker 1: Prince and could not get out of his helmet in
Speaker 1: time for supper. It was a good helmet that had
Speaker 1: been fastened clumsily and inexperienced people trying to help, but
Speaker 1: only succeeded in jamming all the screws. Not only wouldn't
Speaker 1: it come off, it would not even open for a drink.
Speaker 1: All thought in an excellent joke with the exception of
Speaker 1: young Herbert. Saint Leonard, our mayor, a cheerful little man
Speaker 1: and very popular, said that it ought to be sent
Speaker 1: to punch. The local reporter reminded him that the late
Speaker 1: John Leech had already made use of precisely the same
Speaker 1: incident for a comic illustration. Afterwards, remembering that it was
Speaker 1: not Leech but the late phil May, he seemed to
Speaker 1: think this ended the matter. Saint Leonard and the Vicar,
Speaker 1: who our rival authorities upon the subject, fell into an
Speaker 1: argument upon armor in general, the special reference to the
Speaker 1: fourteenth century. Each used the boy's head to confirm his
Speaker 1: own theory, passing it triumphantly from one to the other.
Speaker 1: We had to send off Young Hopkins and the donkey
Speaker 1: cart for the blacksmith. I have found out by the way,
Speaker 1: how it is young Hopkins makes our donkey go. Young
Speaker 1: Hopkins argues it is far less brutal than whacking him,
Speaker 1: especially after experience has proved that he evidently does not
Speaker 1: know why you are whacking him. I am not at
Speaker 1: all sure the boy is not right. Janey played the
Speaker 1: fairy god Mamma in a white wig and panniers. She
Speaker 1: will make a beautiful old lady. The white hair gives
Speaker 1: her the one thing that she lacks, distinction. I found
Speaker 1: myself glancing apprehensively round the room, wishing we had not
Speaker 1: invited so many eligible bachelors. Dick is making me anxious.
Speaker 1: The sense of his own unworthiness, which has come to
Speaker 1: him quite suddenly, and apparently with all the shock of
Speaker 1: a new discovery, has completely unnerved him. It is a
Speaker 1: healthy sentiment and does him good, but I do not
Speaker 1: want it carried to the length of losing her. The
Speaker 1: thought of what he might one day bring home has
Speaker 1: been a nightmare to me ever since he left school.
Speaker 1: I suppose it is to most fathers, especially if one
Speaker 1: thinks of the women one loved one's self. When in
Speaker 1: the early twenties, a large, pale faced girl who served
Speaker 1: in a bun shop in the strand as the first
Speaker 1: I can recollect how I trembled when by chance her
Speaker 1: hand touched mine. I cannot recall a single attraction about
Speaker 1: her except her size. Yet for nearly six months I
Speaker 1: lunched off pastryan mineral waters merely to be near her.
Speaker 1: To this very day, an attack of indigestion will always
Speaker 1: recreate her image in my mind. Another was a thin,
Speaker 1: sallow girl, but with magnificent eyes. I met one afternoon
Speaker 1: in the South Kensington Museum. She was a brainless, vixenish girl,
Speaker 1: but the memory of her eyes would always draw me
Speaker 1: back to her. More than two thirds of our time
Speaker 1: together we spent in violent quarrels, and all my hopes
Speaker 1: of eternity I would have given to make her my
Speaker 1: companion for life. But for luck in the shape of
Speaker 1: a well to do cab proprietor as great an idiot
Speaker 1: as myself, I might have done it. The third was
Speaker 1: a chorous girl, the whole, the best of the bunch.
Speaker 1: Her father was a coachman, and she had ten brothers
Speaker 1: and sisters, most of them doing well in service. And
Speaker 1: she was succeeded, if I have the order correct, by
Speaker 1: the ex wife of a solicitor, a sprightly lady, according
Speaker 1: to her own account, the victim of complicated injustice. I
Speaker 1: dare say there were others, if I took the time
Speaker 1: to think, but not one of them can I remember
Speaker 1: without returning thanks to Providence for having lost her. What
Speaker 1: is one to do? There are days in springtime when
Speaker 1: a young man ought not to be allowed outside the house,
Speaker 1: Thank Heaven and convention. It is not the girls who proposed.
Speaker 1: Few women who would choose the right moment to put
Speaker 1: their hands upon a young man's shoulders, and, looking into
Speaker 1: his eyes, ask him to marry them next week, would
Speaker 1: receive no for an answer. It is only our shyness
Speaker 1: that saves us. A wise friend of mine, who has
Speaker 1: observed much, would have all those marrying under five and
Speaker 1: twenty divorced by automatic effluction of time at forty, leaving
Speaker 1: the few who had chosen satisfactorily to be re united
Speaker 1: if they wished. His argument being that to condemn grown
Speaker 1: men and women to abide by the choice of inexperienced
Speaker 1: boys and girls is unjust and absurd. There were nice
Speaker 1: girls I could have fallen in love with. They never
Speaker 1: occurred to me. It would seem as if a man
Speaker 1: had to learn taste in women, as in all other things,
Speaker 1: namely by education. Here and there may exist the born connoisseur,
Speaker 1: but with most of us, our first instincts are towards vulgarity.
Speaker 1: It is Barry, I think, who says that if only
Speaker 1: there were silly women enough to go round, good women
Speaker 1: would never get a look in. It is certainly remarkable
Speaker 1: the number of sweet old maids one meets, almost as
Speaker 1: remarkable as the number of stupid, cross grained wives. As
Speaker 1: I tell Dick, I have no desire for a daughter
Speaker 1: in law of whom he feels himself worthy. If he
Speaker 1: can't do better than that, he had best remain single.
Speaker 1: Janey and He, if I know anything of life, are
Speaker 1: just suited for one another. Helpful people take their happiness
Speaker 1: in helping. I knew just such another. Once a sweet, industrious,
Speaker 1: sensible she made the mistake of marrying a thoroughly good man.
Speaker 1: There was nothing for her to do. She ended by
Speaker 1: losing all interest in him, devoting herself to a home
Speaker 1: in the East End for the reformation of newsboys. It
Speaker 1: was a pitiful waste. So many women would have been
Speaker 1: glad of him, while to the ordinary sinful man she
Speaker 1: would have been a life long comfort. I must have
Speaker 1: a serious talk to Dick. I shall point out what
Speaker 1: a good thing it will be for her. I can
Speaker 1: see Dick keeping her busy and contented for the rest
Speaker 1: of her days. Veronica played the princess with little boy
Speaker 1: Foy Sir Robert of the Course as her page. Anything
Speaker 1: more dignified has, I should say, rarely been seen upon
Speaker 1: the English stage. Among her wedding presents were two votes
Speaker 1: for women, presented by the local fire brigade. A flying
Speaker 1: machine of proved stability might be used as a bathing tent.
Speaker 1: A national theater with cold water, douche and basement for
Speaker 1: reception of English dramatists. Recipe for building a navy without
Speaker 1: paying for it. Gift of that great financial expert, Sir
Speaker 1: hocus Pocus. One conscientious income taxpayer has been driven by
Speaker 1: a lady. Two socialists in agreement as to what it
Speaker 1: means smaller, one slightly damaged, one contented farmer Babylonian period,
Speaker 1: and one exercised bottle. Solution of the servant problem. Dick
Speaker 1: played the dragon without a tale. We had to make
Speaker 1: him without a tale, owing to the smallness of the stage.
Speaker 1: He had once had a tale, but that was a
Speaker 1: long story added to which there was not time to
Speaker 1: tell it. Little Sallie Saint Leonard played his wife, and
Speaker 1: Robin was his mother in law. So much depends upon
Speaker 1: one's mood. What an ocean of boredom might be saved
Speaker 1: if science could but give us a barometer for telling
Speaker 1: us our changes of temperament, How much more to our
Speaker 1: comfort we could plan in our lives, knowing that on Monday, say,
Speaker 1: we should be feeling frivolous, on Saturday dull to bad tempered.
Speaker 1: I took a man once to see the private Secretary.
Speaker 1: I began by enjoying myself, and ended by feeling ashamed
Speaker 1: of myself and vexed with the scheme of creation. That
Speaker 1: authors should write such plays, that actors should be willing
Speaker 1: to degrade our common nature by appearing in them, was explainable,
Speaker 1: he supposed, by the law of supply and demand. What
Speaker 1: he could not understand was how the public could contrive
Speaker 1: to extract amusement from them. What was their funny in
Speaker 1: seeing a poor gentleman shut up in a box? Why
Speaker 1: should everybody roar with laughter when he asked for a bun?
Speaker 1: People asked for buns every day, people in railway refreshment
Speaker 1: rooms and aer raated bread shops. Where was the joke?
Speaker 1: A month later, I found myself, by chance, occupying the
Speaker 1: seat just behind him, at the pantomime, the low comedian
Speaker 1: was bathing a baby, and tears of merriment were rolling
Speaker 1: down his cheeks. To me, the whole business seemed painful
Speaker 1: and revolting. We were being asked to find delight in
Speaker 1: the spectacle of a father scouring down an infant of
Speaker 1: tender years with a scrubbing brush. How women, many of
Speaker 1: them mothers, could remain through such an exhibition without rising
Speaker 1: in protest appeared to me an argument against female suffrage.
Speaker 1: A lady entered the wife, so the program informed me
Speaker 1: of a baron. All I can say is that a
Speaker 1: more vulg her, less prepossessing female I never wished to meet.
Speaker 1: I even doubted her sobriety. She sat down plump upon
Speaker 1: the baby. She must have been a woman rising sixteen stone,
Speaker 1: and for one minute fifteen seconds, by my watch, the
Speaker 1: whole house rocked with laughter. That the thing was only
Speaker 1: a stage property, I felt was no excuse. The humor
Speaker 1: heaven saved the mark lay in the supposition that what
Speaker 1: we were witnessing was the agony and death, for no
Speaker 1: child could have survived that woman's weight of a real baby.
Speaker 1: Had I been able to tap myself beforehand, I should
Speaker 1: have learned that on that particular Saturday I was going
Speaker 1: to be set serious. Instead of booking a seat for
Speaker 1: the pantomime, I should have gone to a lecture on
Speaker 1: Egyptian pottery, which was being given by a friend of
Speaker 1: mine at the London Library, and have had a good time.
Speaker 1: Children could tap their parents, warn each other that father
Speaker 1: was going down, that mother next week was likely to
Speaker 1: be gusty. Children themselves might hang out their little parometers.
Speaker 1: I remember a rainy day in a country house during
Speaker 1: the Christmas holidays. We had among us a member of Parliament,
Speaker 1: a man of sunny disposition, extremely fond of children. He
Speaker 1: said it was awfully hard lines on the little beggars,
Speaker 1: cooped up in a nursery, and borrowing his host's motor coat,
Speaker 1: pretended he was a bear. He plodded round on his
Speaker 1: hands and knees and growled a good deal, And the
Speaker 1: children sat on the sofa and watched him. But they
Speaker 1: didn't seem to be enjoying it, not much. And after
Speaker 1: a quarter of an hour or so he noticed this himself.
Speaker 1: He thought it was maybe that they were tired of bears,
Speaker 1: and fancied that a whale might rouse them. He turned
Speaker 1: the table upside down and placed the children in it
Speaker 1: on three chairs, explaining to them that they were shipwrecked
Speaker 1: sailors on a raft and that they must be careful
Speaker 1: the whale did not get underneath it and upset them.
Speaker 1: He draped a sheet over the towel horse to represent
Speaker 1: an iceberg, and rolled himself up in a macintosh, and
Speaker 1: flopped about the floor on his stomach, butting his head
Speaker 1: occasionally against the table, in order to suggest to them
Speaker 1: their danger. The attitude of the children still remained that
Speaker 1: of polite spectators. True, the youngest boy did make the
Speaker 1: suggestion of borrowing the kitchen toasting fork and employing it
Speaker 1: as a harpoon, but even this appeared to be the
Speaker 1: outcome rather of a desire to please than of many
Speaker 1: warmer interests, and the wail objecting the idea fell through.
Speaker 1: After that, he climbed up on the dresser and announced
Speaker 1: to them that he was an orangutae. They watched him
Speaker 1: break a soup tureen, and then the eldest boy, stepping
Speaker 1: out into the middle of the room, held up his arm,
Speaker 1: and the member of Parliament, somewhat surprised, sat down on
Speaker 1: the dresser and listened, please, sir, said the eldest boy.
Speaker 1: We're awfully sorry. It's awfully good of you, sir, but
Speaker 1: somehow we're not feeling in the mood for wild beasts.
Speaker 1: This afternoon, the Member of Parliament brought them down into
Speaker 1: the drawing room, where we had music, and the children,
Speaker 1: at their own request, were allowed to sing hymns. The
Speaker 1: next day they came of their own accord and asked
Speaker 1: a member of Parliament to play at beasts with them,
Speaker 1: but it seemed he had letters to write. There are
Speaker 1: times when jokes about mothers in law strike me as
Speaker 1: lacking both in taste and freshness. On this particular evening
Speaker 1: they came to me, bringing with them all the fragrance
Speaker 1: of the days that are no more. The first play
Speaker 1: I ever saw dealt with the subject of the mother
Speaker 1: in law, the problem I think it was called in
Speaker 1: those days. The occasion was an amateur performance given in
Speaker 1: aid of the local ragged school. A cousin of mine,
Speaker 1: lately married, played the wife, and my aunt I remember,
Speaker 1: got up and walked out in the middle of the
Speaker 1: second act. Robina in spectacles and an early Victorian bonnet
Speaker 1: reminded me of her. Young but played a comic cabman.
Speaker 1: It was at the old Haymarket in Buxton's time that
Speaker 1: I first met the cabmen of art and literature. Dear
Speaker 1: bibulous becoded creature with ever wrathful outstretched palm and husky here,
Speaker 1: what's this? How good it was to see him once again?
Speaker 1: I felt I wanted to climb over the footlights and
Speaker 1: shake him by the hand. The twins played a couple
Speaker 1: of young Turks, much concerned about their constitutions, and made
Speaker 1: quite a hit with a topical duet to the refrain
Speaker 1: and so you see the reason he is not the
Speaker 1: boss for us? We all agreed it was upon worthy
Speaker 1: of tom Hood himself. The vicar thought he had heard
Speaker 1: it before, but this seemed improbable. There was a unanimous
Speaker 1: call for author or, giving rise to sounds of discussion
Speaker 1: behind the curtain. Eventually the whole company appeared, with Veronica
Speaker 1: in the center. I had noticed throughout that the center
Speaker 1: of the stage appeared to be Veronica's favorite spot. I
Speaker 1: can see the makings of a leading actress in Veronica.
Speaker 1: In my own piece, which followed, Robina and Butte played
Speaker 1: a young married couple who do not know how to quarrel.
Speaker 1: It has always struck me how much more satisfactorily people
Speaker 1: quarrel on the stage than in real life. On the stage,
Speaker 1: the man, having made up his mind to have it out,
Speaker 1: enters and closes the door. He lights a cigarette, if
Speaker 1: not a teetotaler, mixes himself of brandy and soda. His wife,
Speaker 1: all this time is careful to remain silent. Quite evident
Speaker 1: it is that he is preparing for her benefit. Something
Speaker 1: unpleasant and chatter might disturb him. To fill up the time,
Speaker 1: she toys with the novel, or touches softly the keys
Speaker 1: of the piano, until he is quite comfortable and ready
Speaker 1: to begin. He glides into his subject with the studied
Speaker 1: calm of one with all the afternoon before him. She
Speaker 1: listens to him in rapt attention. She does not dream
Speaker 1: of interrupting him, would scorn the suggestion of chipping in
Speaker 1: with any little notion of her own likely to disarrange
Speaker 1: his train of thought. All she does when he pauses,
Speaker 1: as occasionally he has to for the purpose of taking breath,
Speaker 1: is to come to his assistance with short, encouraging remarks, such,
Speaker 1: for instance, as well you think that, and if I did?
Speaker 1: Her object seems to be to help him on go on,
Speaker 1: she says, from time to time bitterly, and he goes on.
Speaker 1: Towards the end. When he shows signs of easing up,
Speaker 1: she puts it to him, as one sportsman to another.
Speaker 1: Is he quite finished? Is that all? Sometimes it isn't.
Speaker 1: As often as not he has been saving the pick
Speaker 1: of the basket for the last. No, he says, that
Speaker 1: is not all. There is something else that is quite
Speaker 1: enough for her. That is all she wanted to know,
Speaker 1: she merely asked, in case there might be, As it appears,
Speaker 1: there is. She resettles herself in her chair and is
Speaker 1: again all ears. When it does come. When he is
Speaker 1: quite sure there is nothing he has forgotten, no little
Speaker 1: point that he has overlooked, she rises. I have listened patiently,
Speaker 1: she begins, to all that you have said. The devil
Speaker 1: himself could not deny this patience hardly seems the word enthusiastically,
Speaker 1: She might almost have said, Now, with rising inflection, you
Speaker 1: listen to me. The stage husband always the gentleman, bows stiffly, maybe,
Speaker 1: but quite politely, and prepares in his turn to occupy
Speaker 1: the role of dumb but dignified defendant who emphasize the
Speaker 1: coming change in their positions. The lady most probably crossed
Speaker 1: over to what has hitherto been his side of the stage,
Speaker 1: while he, starting at the same moment and passing her
Speaker 1: about the center, settles himself down in what must be
Speaker 1: regarded as the listener's end of the room. We then
Speaker 1: have the whole story over again from her point of view,
Speaker 1: and this time it is the gentleman who would bite
Speaker 1: off his tongue rather than make a retort calculated to
Speaker 1: put the lady off. In the end, it is the
Speaker 1: party who is in the right that conquers off the stage.
Speaker 1: This is more or less of a toss up on
Speaker 1: the stage. Never If justice be with the husband, then
Speaker 1: it is his voice that, gradually growing louder and louder,
Speaker 1: rings at last triumphant through the house. The lady sees
Speaker 1: herself that she has been to blame and wonders why
Speaker 1: it did not occur to her before, is grateful for
Speaker 1: the revelation and asks to be forgiven. If, on the
Speaker 1: other hand, it was the husband who is at fault,
Speaker 1: then it is the lady who will be found eventually
Speaker 1: occupying the center of the stage. The miserable husband who
Speaker 1: morally speaking, will be trying to get under the table. Now.
Speaker 1: In real life, things don't happen quite like this. What
Speaker 1: the quarrel in real life suffers from his want of system.
Speaker 1: There is no order, no settled plan. There is much
Speaker 1: too much go as you please about the quarrel in
Speaker 1: real life, and the result is naturally pure muddle. The
Speaker 1: man turning things over in the morning while shaving, makes
Speaker 1: up his mind to have this matter out and have
Speaker 1: done with it. He knows exactly what he is going
Speaker 1: to say. He repeats it to himself at intervals during
Speaker 1: the day. He will first say this, and then he
Speaker 1: will go on to that. While he is about it,
Speaker 1: he will perhaps mention the other. He reckons it will
Speaker 1: take him a quarter of an hour, which will just
Speaker 1: give him time to dress for dinner. After it is
Speaker 1: over and he looks at his watch, he finds it
Speaker 1: has taken him longer than that. Added to which he
Speaker 1: has said, next to nothing, next to nothing. That is
Speaker 1: what he meant to say. It went wrong from the
Speaker 1: very start. As a matter of fact, there wasn't any start.
Speaker 1: He entered the room and closed the door. That is
Speaker 1: as far as he got the cigarette. He never even lighted.
Speaker 1: There ought to have been a box of matches on
Speaker 1: the mantelpiece behind the photo frame, and of course there
Speaker 1: were none there. For her to fly into a temper
Speaker 1: merely because he reminded her that he had spoken about
Speaker 1: this very matter at least a hundred times before, and
Speaker 1: accused him of going about his own house stealing his
Speaker 1: own matches was positively laughable. They had quarreled for about
Speaker 1: five minutes over those wretched matches, and then for another
Speaker 1: ten because he said that women had no sense of humor,
Speaker 1: and she wanted to know how He knew after that
Speaker 1: there had cropped up the last quarter's gas bill, and that,
Speaker 1: by a process still mysterious to him, had led them
Speaker 1: into the subject of his behavior on the night of
Speaker 1: the hockey club dance. By an effort of almost supernatural
Speaker 1: self control, he had contrived at length to introduce the subject.
Speaker 1: He had come home half an hour earlier than usual
Speaker 1: on purpose to discuss It didn't interest her in the least.
Speaker 1: What she was full of by this time was a
Speaker 1: girl named Arabella Jones. She got in quite a lot
Speaker 1: while he was vainly trying to remember where he had
Speaker 1: last seen the damned girl He had just succeeded in
Speaker 1: getting back to his own topic when the Cutterford girl
Speaker 1: from next door dashed in without a hat to borrow
Speaker 1: a tuning fork. It had been quite a business finding
Speaker 1: the tuning fork. When she was gone, they had to
Speaker 1: begin all over again. They had quarreled about the drawing
Speaker 1: room carpet, about her sister Florrie's birthday present, and the
Speaker 1: way he drove the motor car. It had taken them
Speaker 1: over an hour and a half, and rather than waste
Speaker 1: the tickets for the theater, they had gone without their dinner.
Speaker 1: The matter of the cold chisel still remained to be
Speaker 1: thrashed out. It had occurred to me that through the
Speaker 1: medium of the drama, I might show how the domestic
Speaker 1: quarrel could so easily be improved. A Dolphus good Body,
Speaker 1: a worthy young man deeply attached to his wife, feels
Speaker 1: nevertheless that the dinners she is inflicting upon him are
Speaker 1: threatening with permanent damage his digestive system. He determines come
Speaker 1: what may to insist upon a change. Alvira Goodbody, a
Speaker 1: charming girl, admiring and devoted to her husband, is notwithstanding
Speaker 1: a trifle on tape, especially when her domestic arrangements happened
Speaker 1: to be the theme of discussion. Adolphus, his courage, screwed
Speaker 1: to the sticking point, broaches the difficult subject, and for
Speaker 1: the first half of the act my aim was to
Speaker 1: picture the progress of the human quarrel, not as it
Speaker 1: should be, but as it is. They never reached the cook.
Speaker 1: The first mention of the word dinner reminds Alvirah quick
Speaker 1: to perceive that argument is brewing, and alive to the
Speaker 1: advantage of getting in first that twice the month before
Speaker 1: he had dined out, not returning till the small hours
Speaker 1: of the morning. But she wants to know is where
Speaker 1: this sort of thing is going to end? If the
Speaker 1: purpose of freemasonry is the ruin of the home and
Speaker 1: the desertion of women, then all she has to say
Speaker 1: it turns out to be quite a good deal. Adolphus
Speaker 1: been able to get in a word, suggests that eleven
Speaker 1: o'clock at the latest can hardly be described as the
Speaker 1: small hours of the morning. The fault with women is
Speaker 1: that they never well confine themselves to the simple truth.
Speaker 1: From that point onwards, as can be imagined, the scene
Speaker 1: almost wrote itself. They have passed through all the customary stages,
Speaker 1: and are planning with exaggerated calm arrangements for the separation
Speaker 1: which each now feels to be inevitable. When or not
Speaker 1: comes to the front door and there enters a mutual friend,
Speaker 1: their hasty attempts to cover up the traces of mental
Speaker 1: disorder with which the atmosphere is strewed did not deceive him.
Speaker 1: There has been, let us say, a ripple on the
Speaker 1: waters of perfect agreement. Come. What was it all about about?
Speaker 1: They looked from one to the other. Surely it would
Speaker 1: be simpler to tell him what it had not been about.
Speaker 1: It had been about the parrot, about her want of punctuality,
Speaker 1: about his using the butter knife for the marmalade, about
Speaker 1: a pair of slippers he had lost to Christmas, About
Speaker 1: the education question, and her dressmaker's bill, and his friend George,
Speaker 1: and the next door dog. The mutual friend cuts short
Speaker 1: the catalog. Clearly, there is nothing for it but to
Speaker 1: begin the quarrel all over again, and this time, if
Speaker 1: they will put themselves into his hands, he feels sure
Speaker 1: he can promise victory, to which every one is in
Speaker 1: the right. Alvirah. She has a sweet, impulsive nature, throws
Speaker 1: her arms around him. That is all she wants. Only
Speaker 1: Adolphus could be brought to sea. Adolphus grips him by
Speaker 1: the hand. If only Alvira would listen to, sents the
Speaker 1: mutual friend. He is an old stage manager, arranges the scene.
Speaker 1: Alvira in easy chair by fire with crochet and toer Adolphus.
Speaker 1: He lights a cigarette, flings the match on the floor
Speaker 1: with his hands in his pockets, paces up and down
Speaker 1: the room, kicks a footstool out of his way. Tell
Speaker 1: me when I am to begin, says Alvira. The mutual
Speaker 1: friend promises to give her the right cue. Adolphus comes
Speaker 1: to a halt in the center of the room. I
Speaker 1: am sorry, my dear, he says, but there is something
Speaker 1: I must say to you, something that may not be
Speaker 1: altogether pleasant for you to hear, to which Alvira, still crocheting, replies,
Speaker 1: oh indeed, and pray what may that be? This was
Speaker 1: not Alvira's own idea. Springing from her chair, she had
Speaker 1: got as far as look here, if you have come
Speaker 1: home early merely for the purpose of making a row
Speaker 1: before the mutual friend could stop her. The mutual friend
Speaker 1: was firm only by exacting strict obedience could guarantee a
Speaker 1: successful issue. What she had got to say was oh, indeed,
Speaker 1: et cetera. The mutual Friend had need of all his
Speaker 1: tact to prevent its becoming a quarrel of three. Adolphus,
Speaker 1: allowed to proceed, explained that the subject about which he
Speaker 1: wished to speak was the subject of dinner. The mutual
Speaker 1: friend this time was beforehand. Alvira's retort to that was dinner,
Speaker 1: you complain of the dinners I provide for you, enabling
Speaker 1: him to reply, yes, Madam, I do complain, and to
Speaker 1: give reasons. It seemed to Alvira that the mutual Friend
Speaker 1: had lost his senses to tell her to wait that
Speaker 1: her time would come. Of what use was that half
Speaker 1: of what she wanted to say would be gone out
Speaker 1: of her head. Adolphus brought to a conclusion his criticism
Speaker 1: of Alvira's kitchen, and then Alvira, incapable of restraining herself,
Speaker 1: further rose majestically. The mutual Friend was saved the trouble
Speaker 1: of suppressing Adolphus until Elvira had finished. Adolphus never got
Speaker 1: an opening. He grumbled at their dinners, he who can
Speaker 1: dine night after night with his precious freemasons. Does he
Speaker 1: think she likes them any better? She doomed to stay
Speaker 1: at home and eat them? What does he take her
Speaker 1: for an ostrich? Whose fault is it that they keep
Speaker 1: an incompetent cook, too old to learn and too obstinate
Speaker 1: to want to Whose old family servant was she not Alvira's.
Speaker 1: It has been to please a dolphice that she has
Speaker 1: suffered the woman, and this is her reward. This she
Speaker 1: breaks down. Adolphus is astonished and troubled personally. He never
Speaker 1: liked the woman. Faithful she may have been, but a cook.
Speaker 1: Never his own idea, had he been consulted, would have
Speaker 1: been a small pension. Alvira falls upon his neck. Why
Speaker 1: did he not say so? Before Adolphus presses her to
Speaker 1: his bosom? If only he had known. They promised the
Speaker 1: mutual friend never to quarrel again without his assistance. The
Speaker 1: acting all round was quite good. Our curate, who is
Speaker 1: a bachelor, said it taught a lesson. Veronica had tears
Speaker 1: in her eyes. She whispered to me that she thought
Speaker 1: it beautiful. There is more in Veronica than people think.
Speaker 1: End of Chapter eleven.