Short Plays

drinks. A terrific fizzing is heard. He starts up screaming. Help! help! The ceiling is effervescing! I am bursting! He wallows convulsively on the bed. Fitz Quick! the rug strap! They pack him with blankets and strap him. Is that tight enough? Magnesia Anxiously. Will you hold, do you think? Adolphus The peril is past. The soda-water has gone flat. Magnesia
Fitz Thank heaven! Phyllis returns with a washstand ewer, in which she has dissolved the bust. Magnesia Snatching it. At last! Fitz You are saved. Drain it to the dregs. Fitztollemache holds the lip of the ewer to Adolphus’s mouth and gradually raises it until it stands upside down. Adolphus’s efforts to swallow it are fearful, Phyllis thumping his back when he chokes, and Magnesia loosening the straps when he moans. At last, with a sigh of relief, he sinks back in the women’s arms. Fitz shakes the empty ewer upside down like a potman shaking the froth out of a flagon. Adolphus How inexpressibly soothing to the chest! A delicious numbness steals through all my members. I would sleep. Magnesia
Fitz
Phyllis Whispering together. Let him sleep. He sleeps. Celestial harps are heard, but their chords cease on the abrupt entrance of the Landlord, a vulgar person in pyjamas. The Landlord Eah! Eah! Wots this? Wots all this noise? Ah kin ennybody sleep through it? Looking at the floor and ceiling. Ellow! wot you bin doin te maw ceilin? Fitz Silence, or leave the room. If you wake that man he dies. The Landlord If e kin sleep through the noise you three mikes e kin sleep through ennythink. Magnesia Detestable vulgarian: your pronunciation jars on the finest chords of my nature. Begone! The Landlord Looking at Adolphus. Aw downt blieve eze esleep. Aw blieve eze dead. Calling. Pleece! Pleece! Merder! A blue halo plays mysteriously on the door, which opens and reveals a Policeman. Thunder. Eah, pleecmin: these three’s bin an merdered this gent between em, an naw tore moy ahse dahn. The Policeman Offended. Policeman, indeed! Where’s your manners? Fitz Officer⁠— The Policeman With distinguished consideration. Sir? Fitz As between gentlemen⁠— The Policeman Bowing. Sir: to you. Fitz Bowing. I may inform you that my friend had an acute attack of indigestion. No carbonate of soda being available, he swallowed a portion of this man’s ceiling. Pointing to Adolphus. Behold the result! The Policeman The ceiling was poisoned! Well, of all the artful⁠—He collars the Landlord. I arrest you for wilful murder. The Landlord Appealing to the heavens. Ow, is this jestice! Ah could aw tell e wiz gowin te eat moy ceilin? The Policeman Releasing him. True. The case is more complicated than I thought. He tries to lift Adolphus’s arm but cannot. Stiff already. The Landlord Trying to lift Adolphus’s leg. An’ precious evvy. Feeling the calf. Woy, eze gorn ez awd ez niles. Fitz Rushing to the bed. What is this? Magnesia Oh, say not he is dead. Phyllis: fetch a doctor. Phyllis runs out. They all try to lift Adolphus, but he is perfectly stiff, and as heavy as lead. Rouse him. Shake him. The Policeman Exhausted. Whew! Is he a man or a statue? Magnesia utters a piercing scream. What’s wrong, Miss? Magnesia To Fitz. Do you not see what has happened? Fitz Striking his forehead. Horror on horror’s head! The Landlord Wotjemean? Magnesia The plaster has set inside him. The officer was right: he is indeed a living statue. Magnesia flings herself on the stony breast of Adolphus. Fitztollemache buries his head in his hands; and his chest heaves convulsively. The Policeman takes a small volume from his pocket and consults it. The Policeman This case is not provided for in my book of instructions. It don’t seem no use trying artificial respiration, do it? To the Landlord. Here! lend a hand, you. We’d best take him and set him up in Trafalgar Square. The Landlord Aushd pat im in the cestern an worsh it aht of im. Phyllis comes back with a Doctor. Phyllis The medical man, my lady. The Policeman A poison case, sir. The Doctor Do you mean to say that an unqualified person! a layman! has dared to administer poison in my district? The Policeman Raising Magnesia tenderly. It looks like it. Hold up, my lady. The Doctor Not a moment must be lost The patient must be kept awake at all costs. Constant and violent motion is necessary. He snatches Magnesia from the Policeman, and rushes her about the room. Fitz Stop! That is not the poisoned person! The Doctor It is you, then. Why did you not say so before? He seizes Fitztollemache and rushes him about. The Landlord Naow, naow, thet ynt im. The Doctor What, you! He pounces on the Landlord and rushes him round. The Landlord Eah! chack it He trips the Doctor up. Both fall. Jest owld this leoonatic, will you. Mister Horficer? The Policeman Dragging both of them to their feet. Come out of it, will you. You must all come with me to the station. Thunder. Magnesia What! In this frightful storm! The hail patters noisily on the window. Phyllis I think it’s raining. The wind howls. The Landlord It’s thanderin and lawtnin. Fitz It’s dangerous. The Policeman Drawing his baton and whistle. If you won’t come quietly, then⁠— He whistles. A fearful flash is followed by an appalling explosion of heaven’s artillery. A thunderbolt enters the room, and strikes the helmet of the devoted constable, whence it is attracted to the waistcoat of the Doctor by the lancet in his pocket. Finally it leaps with fearful force on the Landlord, who, being of a gross and spongy nature, absorbs the electric fluid at the cost of his life. The others look on horror-stricken as the three victims, after reeling, jostling, cannoning through a ghastly quadrille, at last sink inanimate on the carpet.