If: A Play in Four Acts by Lord Dunsany (uplifting books for women .txt) 📗
- Author: Lord Dunsany
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ARCHIE BEAL
What's that, Johnny?
JOHN BEAL
He won't pay, but I told him we're English and that they're greater than all his bronze gods.
ARCHIE BEAL
That's right, Johnny.
[HUSSEIN looks fiercely at ARCHIE. He sees ARCHIE's hat lying before a big idol. He points at the hat and looks in the face of the idol.]
HUSSEIN [to the idol] Drink! Drink!
[He bows. Exit.]
ARCHIE BEAL
What's that he's saying?
JOHN BEAL [meditatively] O, nothing—nothing.
ARCHIE BEAL
He won't pay, oh?
JOHN BEAL
No, not to Miss Miralda.
ARCHIE BEAL
Who to?
JOHN BEAL
To one of his gods.
ARCHIE BEAL
That won't do.
JOHN BEAL
No.
ARCHIE BEAL
What'll we do?
JOHN BEAL
I don't quite know. It isn't as if we were in England.
ARCHIE BEAL
No, it isn't.
JOHN BEAL
If we were in England...
ARCHIE BEAL
I know; if we were in England you could call a policeman. I tell you what it is, Johnny.
JOHN BEAL
Yes?
ARCHIE BEAL
I tell you what; you want to see more of Miss Clement.
JOHN BEAL
Why?
ARCHIE BEAL
Why, because at the present moment our friend Hussein is a craftier fellow than you, and looks like getting the best of it.
JOHN BEAL
How will seeing more of Miss Miralda help us?
ARCHIE BEAL
Why, because you want to be a bit craftier than Hussein, and I fancy she might make you.
JOHN BEAL
She? How?
ARCHIE BEAL
We're mostly made what we are by some woman or other. We think it's our own cleverness, but we're wrong. As things are you're no match for Hussein, but if you altered...
JOHN BEAL
Why, ARCHIE; where did you get all those ideas from?
ARCHIE BEAL
O, I don't know.
JOHN BEAL
You never used to talk like that.
ARCHIE BEAL
O, well.
JOHN BEAL
You haven't been getting in love, ARCHIE, have you?
ARCHIE BEAL
What are we to do about Hussein?
JOHN BEAL
It's funny your mentioning Miss Miralda. I got a letter from her the same day I got yours.
ARCHIE BEAL
What does she say?
JOHN BEAL
I couldn't make it out.
ARCHIE BEAL
What were her words?
JOHN BEAL
She said she was going into it closer. She underlined closer. What could she mean by that? How could she get closer?
ARCHIE BEAL
Well, the same way as I did.
JOHN BEAL
How do you mean? I don't understand.
ARCHIE BEAL
By coming here.
JOHN BEAL
By coming here? But she can't come here.
ARCHIE BEAL
Why not?
JOHN BEAL
Because it's impossible. Absolutely impossible. Why—good Lord—she couldn't come here. Why, she'd want a chaperon and a house and—and—everything. Good Lord, she couldn't come here. It would be—well it would be impossible—it couldn't be done.
ARCHIE BEAL
O, all right. Then I don't know what she meant.
JOHN BEAL
ARCHIE! You don't really think she'd come here? You don't really think it, do you?
ARCHIE BEAL
Well, it's the sort of thing that that sort of girl might do, but of course I can't say...
JOHN BEAL
Good Lord, ARCHIE! That would be awful.
ARCHIE BEAL
But why?
JOHN BEAL
Why? But what would I do? Where would she go? Where would her chaperon go? The chaperon would be some elderly lady. Why, it would kill her.
ARCHIE BEAL
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