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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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434 ‘Let me see,’ said Nicholas. ‘You play the faithful and attached servant; you are turned out of doors with the wife and child.’ ‘Always coupled with that infernal phenomenon,’ sighed Mr Folair; ‘and we go into poor lodgings, where I won’t take any wages, and talk sentiment, I suppose?’ ‘Why--yes,’ replied Nicholas: ‘that is the course of the piece.’ ‘I must have a dance of some kind, you know,’ said Mr Folair. ‘You’ll have to introduce one for the phenomenon, so you’d better make a pas de deux, and save time.’ ‘There’s nothing easier than that,’ said Mr Lenville, observing the disturbed looks of the young dramatist. ‘Upon my word I don’t see how it’s to be done,’ rejoined Nicholas. ‘Why, isn’t it obvious?’ reasoned Mr Lenville. ‘Gadzooks, who can help seeing the way to do it?--you astonish me! You get the distressed lady, and the little child, and the attached servant, into the poor lodgings, don’t you?--Well, look here. The distressed lady sinks into a chair, and buries her face in her pocket-handkerchief. “What makes you weep, mama?” says the child. “Don’t weep, mama, or you’ll make me weep too!”--“And me!” says the favourite servant, rubbing his eyes with his arm. “What can we do to raise your spirits, dear mama?” says the little child. “Ay, what can we do?” says the faithful servant. “Oh, Pierre!” says the distressed lady; “would that I could shake off these painful thoughts.”--“Try, ma’am, try,” says the faithful servant; “rouse yourself, ma’am; be amused.”--“I will,” says the lady, “I will learn to suffer with fortitude. Do you remember that dance, my honest friend, which, in happier days, you practised with this sweet angel? It never failed to calm my spirits then. Oh! let me see it |
