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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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36 CEC Oh, is he going to take you for a nice drive? ALG He’s going to send me away. CEC Then have we got to part? ALG I am afraid so. It’s very painful parting. CEC It is always painful to part from people whom one has known for a very brief space of time. The absence of old friends one can endure with equanimity. But even a momentary separation from anyone to whom one has just been introduced is almost unbearable. ALG Thank you. [Enter Merriman.] MERR The dog-cart is at the door, sir. [Algernon looks appealingly at Cecily.] CEC It can wait, Merriman... for... five minutes. MERR Yes, Miss. [Exit Merriman.] ALG I hope, Cecily, I shall not offend you if I state quite frankly and openly that you seem to me to be in every way the visible personification of absolute perfection. CEC I think your frankness does you great credit, Ernest. If you will allow me I will copy your remarks into my diary. [Goes over to table and begins writing in diary.] ALG Do you really keep a diary? I’d give anything to look at it. May I? CEC Oh no. [Puts her hand over it.] You see, it is simply a very young girl’s record of her own thoughts and impressions, and consequently meant for publication. When it appears in volume form I hope you will order a copy. But pray, Ernest, don’t stop. I delight in taking down from dictation. I have reached “absolute perfection.” You can go on. I am quite ready for more. ALG [Somewhat taken aback.] Ahem! Ahem! CEC Oh, don’t cough, Ernest. When one is dictating one should speak fluently and not cough. Besides, I don’t know how to spell a cough. [Writes as Algernon speaks.] |
