Speaker 1: The Unfortunate Mister Ebbsmith from Mister Punch's Dramatic Sequels by
Speaker 1: Saint John Henkin. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox
Speaker 1: recordings are in the public domain. For more information or
Speaker 1: to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. The Notorious Missus Ebbsmith.
Speaker 1: Those persons who have seen Missus Patrick Campbell's magnificent performance
Speaker 1: in The Notorious Missus Ebbsmith will have probably gone away
Speaker 1: with a quite false impression of the gentleman with whom
Speaker 1: Agnes Ebsmith spent her eight years of married life. For
Speaker 1: the first twelve months, she declares bitterly in the first act,
Speaker 1: he treated me like a woman in a harem, for
Speaker 1: the rest of the time like a beast of burden.
Speaker 1: This is not quite just to poor Ebsmith, who was
Speaker 1: a good sort of fellow in his commonplace way, and
Speaker 1: it is manifestly unfair that the audience should have no
Speaker 1: opportunity of hearing his side of the question. An attempt
Speaker 1: is made to remedy this justice in the following prologue,
Speaker 1: which all fair minded persons are entreated to read before
Speaker 1: seeing mister Pinero's very clever play The Unfortunate Mister Ebsmith.
Speaker 1: Trematous Personae Mister Ebsmith fad.
Speaker 2: By by Lah Agnes Ebsmith read by Capricia Page.
Speaker 1: Narration by Todd. Scene the dining room of the Ebsmith's
Speaker 1: house in West Kensington. Agnes and her husband are at breakfast.
Speaker 1: They have been married seven years. She looks much as
Speaker 1: we see her in the early acts of the play, gaunt, pale,
Speaker 1: badly dressed. He is a careworn man, with hair slightly
Speaker 1: gray at the temples, an anxious forehead, and sad eyes.
Speaker 1: He is glancing through the standard in the intervals of
Speaker 1: eating his bacon. She is absorbed in the Morning Screamer,
Speaker 1: one of the more violent socialist radical organs of that day. Presently,
Speaker 1: Ebsmith looks up.
Speaker 2: You won't forget, Agnes, that we are expecting people to
Speaker 2: dinner tonight.
Speaker 1: Agnes, putting down her paper with an air of patient endurance.
Speaker 1: Ah Ebbsmith mildly, I.
Speaker 2: Was saying, dear, if you will give me your attention
Speaker 2: for a moment that I hoped you would not forget that.
Speaker 2: Sir Miles Jawkins and his wife, and the Spencers and
Speaker 2: the Thornton's were dining here tonight, Agnes contemptuously.
Speaker 3: You seem very anxious that I should remember that lady
Speaker 3: Jawkins is honoring us with her company.
Speaker 2: I only meant that I hoped you had told Jane
Speaker 2: about dinner. Last time the Jorkins came. You may recollect
Speaker 2: that you had omitted to order anything for them to eat,
Speaker 2: and when they arrived there was nothing in the house
Speaker 2: but some soup, a little cold mutton, and a rice pudding.
Speaker 1: Very well returns to her paper.
Speaker 2: Thank you, a Agnes. If you could manage to be
Speaker 2: dressed in time to receive them, I should be very
Speaker 2: much obliged. I of course, I suppose you will be
Speaker 2: here to entertain our guests. Your guests, you mean, my
Speaker 2: dear Agnes. Surely my guests are your guests also, Agnes
Speaker 2: breaking out.
Speaker 3: As long as the present unjust and oppressive marriage laws
Speaker 3: remain in force.
Speaker 2: Absmith interrupting, I don't think we need to go into
Speaker 2: the question of the alteration of the marriage laws. Ah.
Speaker 3: Yes, you always refuse to listen to my arguments on
Speaker 3: that subject. You know they are unanswerable.
Speaker 2: Absmith, patiently, I only meant that there would hardly be
Speaker 2: time to discuss the matter at breakfast, Agnes, vehemently.
Speaker 3: A paltry evasion.
Speaker 2: Still, I assume that you will be here to receive
Speaker 2: our guests, my guests, if you prefer it tonight.
Speaker 3: Do you make a point of always being at home
Speaker 3: to receive my guests?
Speaker 2: Those anarchist people whom we are constantly asking to tea
Speaker 2: certainly not.
Speaker 1: Agnes with triumphant logic.
Speaker 3: Then may I ask you why I should be at
Speaker 3: home to receive the Jokinses.
Speaker 2: My dear, you surely realize that the cases are hardly parallel.
Speaker 2: The only time I was present at one of your
Speaker 2: revolutionary tea parties, the guests consisted of a hyde park
Speaker 2: orator who dropped his heatches, a cobbler who had turned
Speaker 2: socialists by the way of increasing its importance in the
Speaker 2: eyes of the community, three ladies who are either living
Speaker 2: apart from their husbands or living with husbands of other ladies,
Speaker 2: and a Polish refugee who had been convicted quite justly
Speaker 2: of murder. You cannot pretend to compare the Jokinses with
Speaker 2: such people.
Speaker 3: Indeed, I can, rhetorically in a properly organized society abstine.
Speaker 2: Testily, I really you can't stop to reorganized society. Now
Speaker 2: I'm due at my chambers Enafernova, Agnes, solemnly.
Speaker 3: As you decline to listen to what I have to say,
Speaker 3: I may as well tell you at once that I
Speaker 3: shall not be at home to dinner tonight.
Speaker 1: Absmith, controlling his temper with an effort.
Speaker 2: May I ask your reason?
Speaker 3: Because I have to be at the meeting of the
Speaker 3: Anti Marriage Association.
Speaker 2: Can't you send an excuse, Send.
Speaker 3: An excuse, throw up a meeting called to discuss an
Speaker 3: important public question. Because you have asked a few barristers
Speaker 3: and their wives to dine, you must be mad well.
Speaker 2: I must put them off. I suppose what night next
Speaker 2: week will suit you to meet them? Thursday.
Speaker 3: On Thursday, I am addressing a meeting of the Society
Speaker 3: for the Encouragement of Divorce.
Speaker 1: Friday, Agnes, coldly.
Speaker 3: Friday, as you know, is the weekly meeting of the
Speaker 3: Agamist League.
Speaker 2: Saturday.
Speaker 3: On Saturday, I am speaking on free union for the
Speaker 3: people of majesty.
Speaker 2: Can you suggest an evening, Agnes, firmly, no.
Speaker 3: I think the time has come to make a stand
Speaker 3: against the convention which demands that a wife should preside
Speaker 3: at her husband's dinner parties. It is an absurdity.
Speaker 2: Away with it, Ebbsmith alarmed, But Agnes, think what you're doing.
Speaker 2: You don't want to offerend These people Spencer and thought
Speaker 2: and are useful men to know. And Jorkins puts a
Speaker 2: lot of work in my way.
Speaker 1: Agnes, with magnificent scorn, how like a man?
Speaker 3: And so I am to be civil with this Jowkin's
Speaker 3: person because he puts a lot of work in your way.
Speaker 2: Ebbsmith meekly, Well, you know, my dear, I have to
Speaker 2: make an income somehow.
Speaker 3: I would sooner starve than resort to such truckling, Absmith.
Speaker 2: Globally we are likely to do that sooner or later.
Speaker 2: In any case, what do you mean, Absmeth? Diffidently you're
Speaker 2: ahem somewhat subversive. Tenets, my love, are not precisely calculated
Speaker 2: to improve my professional prospects.
Speaker 3: What have I to do with your prospects?
Speaker 2: The accounts of your meetings which appear in the newspapers
Speaker 2: are not likely to encourage respectable solicitors to send me briefs.
Speaker 1: Agnes indifferently.
Speaker 2: Indeed, here's the report in today's Standard of a meeting
Speaker 2: addressed by you last night which would certainly not have
Speaker 2: that effect. Shall I read it to you.
Speaker 3: If you wish.
Speaker 1: Absmith reads.
Speaker 2: The meeting which was held in Saint Luke's Parish last
Speaker 2: night under the auspices of the Polyandrous Club, proved to
Speaker 2: be of an unusually exciting description. The lecturer was missus
Speaker 2: John Ebsmith, wife of the well known barrister.
Speaker 1: Of that name, breaking awe, really.
Speaker 2: Agnes, I think my name need not have been dragged
Speaker 2: into the business go on. As soon as the doors
Speaker 2: were opened, the place of meeting, the Iron Hall, Carter Street,
Speaker 2: was filled with a compact body of roughs assembled from
Speaker 2: the neighboring streets, and that seemed every prospect of disorderly scenes.
Speaker 2: The appearance of Missus Ebbsmith on the platform was greeted
Speaker 2: with cheers and cries of mad agnes. Surely, my dear,
Speaker 2: you mist recognize that my professional reputation is endangered when
Speaker 2: my wife is reported in the newspapers as addressing meetings
Speaker 2: in discreditable parts of London, where her appearance is greeted
Speaker 2: with shouts of mad agnes.
Speaker 3: Nonsense. Who was likely to read an obscure paragraph like.
Speaker 2: That obscure paragraph, My dear Agnes. The Standard has a
Speaker 2: leading article on it. Listen to this Missus's crusade against
Speaker 2: the institution of marriages, again attracting unfavorable attention. Last night
Speaker 2: in Saint Luke's she once more attempted to ventilate her
Speaker 2: preposterous schemes, crack brained crusade, belowing revolutionary nonsense on obscure platforms.
Speaker 2: This subservutionary, whom our audience is not inappropriately nicknamed Mad Agnes.
Speaker 2: Ultimately the meeting had to be broken up by the police.
Speaker 2: We cannot understand how a man in mister E. Fsmith's
Speaker 2: position can allow himself to be made ridiculous, almost weeping.
Speaker 2: I do think they might leave my name out of
Speaker 2: it in a leading article two.
Speaker 3: Is there any more of the staff.
Speaker 2: Another alph column too, My dear to oblige me find
Speaker 2: some less ostentatious method of making known your views on
Speaker 2: the subject of marriage.
Speaker 1: Agnes, anticipating a remark subsequently made by the Duke of Saint.
Speaker 3: Alfred's ostentatious immodesty is not part of my program.
Speaker 2: Absmith, humbly, could you not, for my sake consent to
Speaker 2: take a less prominent part in the moment agnes enthusiastically.
Speaker 3: But I want to be among the leaders, the leaders
Speaker 3: that will be my hour.
Speaker 2: Abysmith, huzzle your harvur. I don't think I quite understand you.
Speaker 3: There is only one hour in a woman's life when
Speaker 3: she is defying her husband, wrecking his happiness, and blasting
Speaker 3: his prospects. That is her hour. Let her make the
Speaker 3: most of every second of it.
Speaker 2: Abs Smith wearily, Well, my dear, when it's sober, you
Speaker 2: will have this satisfaction of counting the departing footsteps of
Speaker 2: a ruined man departing. Certainly you and your crusade between
Speaker 2: them will have killed me. But I must go now.
Speaker 2: I ought to be at my chambers in ten minutes,
Speaker 2: and I must go around and make excuses to Jawkins
Speaker 2: some time this morning. Tell Jane not to bother about dinner.
Speaker 2: To night, I shall dine at the club
Speaker 1: Exit curtain, And of the unfortunate mister Epsmith