Pygmalion and Three Other Plays (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (79 page)

HECTOR [
who has just appeared in the port doorway in a handsome Arab costume
] Why should the escaping slave take his chains with him?

MANGAN That’s right, Hushabye. Keep the pyjamas, my lady, and much good may they do you.

HECTOR [
advancing to LADY UTTERWORD’s left hand
] Let us all go out into the night and leave everything behind us.

MANGAN You stay where you are, the lot of you. I want no company, especially female company.

ELLIE Let him go. He is unhappy here. He is angry with us.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER Go, Boss Mangan; and when you have found the land where there is happiness and where there are no women, send me its latitude and longitude; and I will join you there.

LADY UTTERWORD You will certainly not be comfortable without your luggage, Mr Mangan.

ELLIE
[impatient]
Go, go: why don’t you go? It is a heavenly night: you can sleep on the heath. Take my waterproof to lie on: it is hanging up in the hall.

HECTOR Breakfast at nine, unless you prefer to breakfast with the captain at six.

ELLIE Good night, Alfred.

HECTOR Alfred! [
He runs back to the door and calls into the garden.
] Randall, Mangan’s Christian name is Alfred.

RANDALL [
appearing in the starboard doorway in evening dress
] Then Hesione wins her bet.

MRS HUSHABYE They wouldn’t believe me, Alf.
They contemplate him.

MANGAN Is there any more of you coming in to look at me, as if I was the latest thing in a menagerie?

MRS HUSHABYE You are the latest thing in this menagerie.
Before MANGAN can retort, a fall of furniture is heard from upstairs: then a pistol shot, and a yell of pain. The staring group breaks up in consternation.

MAZZINI’S VOICE [
from above
] Help! A burglar! Help!
^kz

HECTOR [
his eyes blazing
] A burglar!!!

MRS HUSHABYE No, Hector: you’ll be shot
[but it is too late; he has dashed out past MANGAN, who hastily moves towards the bookshelves out of his way].

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER
[blowing his whistle]
All hands aloft! [
He strides out after HECTOR.
]

LADY UTTERWORD My diamonds! [
She follows the captain.
]

RANDALL [
rushing after her
] No, Ariadne. Let me.

ELLIE Oh, is papa shot?
[She runs out.]

MRS HUSHABYE Are you frightened, Alf?

MANGAN No. It ain’t my house, thank God.

MRS HUSHABYE If they catch a burglar, shall we have to go into court as witnesses, and be asked all sorts of questions about our private lives?

MANGAN You won’t be believed if you tell the truth.

MAZZINI Oh, my dear Mrs Hushabye, I might have killed him. [
He throws the pistol on the table and staggers round to the chair.
] I hope you won’t believe I really intended to.
HECTOR comes in, marching an old and villainous looking man before him by the collar. He plants him in the middle of the room and releases him.

RANDALL [
entering with a poker
] Keep your eye on this door, Mangan. I’ll look after the other
[he goes to the starboard door and stands on guard there].

MRS HUSHABYE What has happened?

MAZZINI Your housekeeper told me there was somebody upstairs, and gave me a pistol that Mr Hushabye had been practising with. I thought it would frighten him; but it went off at a touch.

THE BURGLAR Yes, and took the skin off my ear. Precious near took the top off my head. Why don’t you have a proper revolver instead of a thing like that, that goes off if you as much as blow on it?

HECTOR One of my duelling pistols. Sorry.

MAZZINI He put his hands up and said it was a fair cop.
^la

THE BURGLAR So it was. Send for the police.

HECTOR No, by thunder! It was not a fair cop. We were four to one.

MRS HUSHABYE What will they do to him?

THE BURGLAR Ten years. Beginning with solitary. Ten years off my life. I shan’t serve it all: I’m too old. It will see me out.

LADY UTTERWORD You should have thought of that before you stole my diamonds.

THE BURGLAR Well, you’ve got them back, lady, haven’t you? Can you give me back the years of my life you are going to take from me?

MRS HUSHABYE Oh, we can’t bury a man alive for ten years for a few diamonds.

THE BURGLAR Ten little shining diamonds! Ten long black years!

LADY UTTERWORD Think of what it is for us to be dragged through the horrors of a criminal court, and have all our family affairs in the papers! If you were a native, and Hastings could order you a good beating and send you away, I shouldn’t mind; but here in England there is no real protection for any respectable person.

THE BURGLAR I’m too old to be giv a hiding, lady. Send for the police and have done with it. It’s only just and right you should.

RANDALL [
who has relaxed his vigilance on seeing the burglar so pacifically disposed, and comes forward swinging the poker between his fingers like a well-folded umbrella
] It is neither just nor right that we should be put to a lot of inconvenience to gratify your moral enthusiasm, my friend. You had better get out, while you have the chance.

THE BURGLAR [
inexorably
] No. I must work my sin off my conscience. This has come as a sort of call to me. Let me spend the rest of my life repenting in a cell. I shall have my reward above.

MANGAN [
exasperated
] The very burglars can’t behave naturally in this house.

HECTOR My good sir, you must work out your salvation at somebody else’s expense. Nobody here is going to charge you.

THE BURGLAR Oh, you won’t charge me, won’t you?

HECTOR No. I’m sorry to be inhospitable; but will you kindly leave the house?

THE BURGLAR Right. I’ll go to the police station and give myself up. [
He turns resolutely to the door: but HECTOR stops him.
]

LADY UTTERWORD You will have to do as you are told.

THE BURGLAR It’s compounding a felony, you know.

MRS HUSHABYE This is utterly ridiculous. Are we to be forced to prosecute this man when we don’t want to?

THE BURGLAR Am I to be robbed of my salvation to save you the trouble of spending a day at the sessions?
^lb
Is that justice? Is it right? Is it fair to me?

MAZZINI [
rising and leaning across the table persuasively as if it were a pulpit desk or a shop counter
] Come, come! let me show you how you can turn your very crimes to account. Why not set up as a locksmith? You must know more about locks than most honest men?

THE BURGLAR That’s true, sir. But I couldn’t set up as a locksmith under twenty pounds.

RANDALL Well, you can easily steal twenty pounds. You will find it in the nearest bank.

THE BURGLAR [
horrified
] Oh, what a thing for a gentleman to put into the head of a poor criminal scrambling out of the bottomless pit as it were! Oh, shame on you, sir! Oh, God forgive you! [
He throws himself into the big chair and covers his face as if in prayer.
]

LADY UTTERWORD Really, Randall!

HECTOR It seems to me that we shall have to take up a collection for this inopportunely contrite sinner.

LADY UTTERWORD But twenty pounds is ridiculous.

THE BURGLAR
[looking up quickly]
I shall have to buy a lot of tools, lady.

LADY UTTERWORD Nonsense: you have your burgling kit.

THE BURGLAR What’s a jimmy and a centrebit and an acetylene welding plant
^lc
and a bunch of skeleton keys? I shall want a forge, and a smithy, and a shop, and fittings. I can’t hardly do it for twenty.

HECTOR My worthy friend, we haven’t got twenty pounds.

THE BURGLAR
[now master of the situation]
You can raise it among you, can’t you?

MRS HUSHABYE Give him a sovereign, Hector, and get rid of him.

HECTOR [
giving him a pound
] There! Off with you.

THE BURGLAR [
rising and taking the money very ungratefully]
I won’t promise nothing. You have more on you than a quid: all the lot of you, I mean.

LADY UTTERWORD [
rigorously
] Oh, let us prosecute him and have done with it. I have a conscience too, I hope; and I do not feel at all sure that we have any right to let him go, especially if he is going to be greedy and impertinent.

THE BURGLAR
[quickly]
All right, lady, all right. I’ve no wish to be anything but agreeable. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen; and thank you kindly.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [
fixing the burglar with a piercing regard
] What’s this? Are there two of you?

THE BURGLAR [
falling on his knees before the captain in abject terror]
Oh, my good Lord, what have I done? Don’t tell me it’s your house I’ve broken into, Captain Shotover.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER
[turning him towards ELLIE]
Is that your daughter?
[He releases him.]

THE BURGLAR Well, how do I know, Captain?You know the sort of life you and me has led. Any young lady of that age might be my daughter anywhere in the wide world, as you might say.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [
to MAZZINI
] You are not Billy Dunn. This is Billy Dunn. Why have you imposed on me?

THE BURGLAR [
indignantly to MAZZINI
] Have you been giving yourself out to be me? You, that nigh blew my head off! Shooting yourself, in a manner of speaking!

MAZZINI My dear Captain Shotover, ever since I came into this house I have done hardly anything else but assure you that I am not Mr William Dunn, but Mazzini Dunn, a very different person.

THE BURGLAR He don’t belong to my branch, Captain. There’s two sets in the family: the thinking Dunns and the drinking Dunns, each going their own ways. I’m a drinking Dunn: he’s a thinking Dunn. But that didn’t give him any right to shoot me.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER So you’ve turned burglar, have you?

THE BURGLAR No, Captain: I wouldn’t disgrace our old sea calling by such a thing. I am no burglar.

LADY UTTERWORD What were you doing with my diamonds?

GUINNESS What did you break into the house for if you’re no burglar?

RANDALL Mistook the house for your own and came in by the wrong window, eh?

THE BURGLAR Well, it’s no use my telling you a lie: I can take in most captains, but not Captain Shotover, because he sold himself to the devil in Zanzibar, and can divine water, spot gold, explode a cartridge in your pocket with a glance of his eye, and see the truth hidden in the heart of man. But I’m no burglar.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER Are you an honest man?

THE BURGLAR I don’t set up to be better than my fellow-creatures, and never did, as you well know, Captain. But what I do is innocent and pious. I enquire about for houses where the right sort of people live. I work it on them same as I worked it here. I break into the house; put a few spoons or diamonds in my pocket; make a noise; get caught; and take up a collection. And you wouldn’t believe how hard it is to get caught when you’re actually trying to. I have knocked over all the chairs in a room without a soul paying any attention to me. In the end I have had to walk out and leave the job.

RANDALL When that happens, do you put back the spoons and diamonds?

THE BURGLAR Well, I don’t fly in the face of Providence, if that’s what you want to know.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER Guinness, you remember this man?

GUINNESS I should think I do, seeing I was married to him, the blackguard!