The Melting-Pot

MENDEL [Hastily]

No, no, David, not here-the visitors!

DAVID

Visitors? What visitors?

MENDEL [Impatiently]

That's just what I've been trying to explain.

DAVID

Well, I can play in the kitchen.

[He takes his violin. Exit to kitchen. MENDEL sighs and shrugs

his shoulders hopelessly at the boy's perversity, then fingers

the cups and saucers.]

MENDEL [Anxiously]

Is that the best tea-set?

KATHLEEN

Can't you see it's the Passover set!

[Ruefully] And shpiled intirely it'll be now for our Passover.... And the misthress thought the visitors might like to thry some of her Purim cakes.

[Indicates ear-shaped cakes on tray.]

MENDEL [Bitterly]

Purim cakes!

[He turns his back on her and stares moodily out of the

window.]

KATHLEEN [Mutters contemptuously]

Call yerself a Jew and you forgettin' to keep Purim!

[She is going back to the kitchen when a merry Slavic dance

breaks out, softened by the door; her feet unconsciously get more

and more into dance step, and at last she jigs out. As she opens

and passes through the door, the music sounds louder.]

FRAU QUIXANO [Heard from kitchen]

Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Kathleen!!

[MENDEL'S feet, too, begin to take the swing of the music, and

his feet dance as he stares out of the window. Suddenly the hoot

of an automobile is heard, followed by the rattling up of the

car.]

MENDEL

Ah, she has brought somebody swell!

[He throws open the doors and goes out eagerly to meet the

visitors. The dance music goes on softly throughout the scene. ]

QUINCY DAVENPORT [Outside]

Oh, thank you-I leave the coats in the car.

[Enter an instant later QUINCY DAVENPORT and VERA REVENDAL,

MENDEL in the rear. VERA is dressed much as before, but with a

motor veil, which she takes off during the scene. DAVENPORT is a

dude, aping the air of a European sporting clubman. Aged about

thirty-five and well set-up, he wears an orchid and an

intermittent eyeglass, and gives the impression of a

coarse-fibred and patronisingly facetious but not bad-hearted

man, spoiled by prosperity.]

MENDEL

Won't you be seated?

VERA

First let me introduce my friend, who is good enough to interest himself in your nephew-Mr. Quincy Davenport.

MENDEL [Struck of a heap]

Mr. Quincy Davenport! How strange!

VERA

What is strange?

MENDEL

David just mentioned Mr. Davenport's name-said they travelled to New York on the same boat.

QUINCY

Impossible! Always travel on my own yacht. Slow but select. Must have been another man of the same name-my dad. Ha! Ha! Ha!

MENDEL

Ah, of course. I thought you were too young.

QUINCY

My dad, Miss Revendal, is one of those antiquated Americans who are always in a hurry!

VERA

He burns coal and you burn time.

QUINCY

Precisely! Ha! Ha! Ha!

MENDEL

Won't you sit down-I'll go and prepare David.

VERA [Sitting]

You've not prepared him yet?

MENDEL

I've tried to more than once-but I never really got to--

[He smiles] to Germany.

[QUINCY sits.]

VERA

Then prepare him for three visitors.

MENDEL

Three?

VERA

You see Mr. Davenport himself is no judge of music.

QUINCY [Jumps up]

I beg your pardon.

VERA

In manuscript.

QUINCY

Ah, of course not. Music should be heard, not seen-like that jolly jig. Is that your David?

MENDEL

Oh, you mustn't judge him by that. He's just fooling.

QUINCY

Oh, he'd better not fool with Poppy. Poppy's awful severe.

MENDEL

Poppy?

QUINCY

Pappelmeister-my private orchestra conductor.

MENDEL