Short Plays

epub:type="z3998:persona">Anastasia What are you? Mercer I’m the Lord Chancellor’s⁠— Anastasia Secretary? Mercer Well, hardly that, ma’am. If you ask me, I should say I was a sort of what you might call a clerk-valet to his lordship. Anastasia Are you a gentleman? Mercer Staggered. Well, that’s a poser, Miss, really. I’m in a manner of speaking a gentleman. Anastasia In what manner of speaking are you a gentleman? Mercer Well, Miss, I’m a gentleman to my tobacconist. Every man is a gentleman to his tobacconist. The parliamentary candidate for Hornsey always addresses me as a gentleman. But then he ain’t particular: leastways, not at election times. You see, Miss, there are three classes of gentry in this country. Anastasia Only three? Mercer Only three, ma’am. Anastasia How do you tell one from the other? Mercer You tell by the railway porters, Miss. The real upper class gives them a shilling; the upper middle class sixpence; and the lower middle, tuppence. I give tuppence myself. Anastasia And which particular class of gentleman is it, pray, that gives a lady a chair? Mercer Oh, I’m sure I beg your pardon, Miss. He places a chair for her. Anastasia Thanks. And now will you be good enough to tell Sir Cardonius Boshington that Miss Anastasia Vulliamy wishes to see him? Mercer To the Lord Chancellor. Miss Anaesthesia Vulliamy, my lord, to see you. Anastasia Springing up. Do you mean to tell me that this old man in livery is the great Chancellor? The Lord Chancellor At your service, Miss Vulliamy. Anastasia Producing a newspaper. Quite impossible. I have here an article on Sir Cardonius, headed Our Great Chancellor; and the description does not correspond in the least. Reading. “No man of our time has succeeded in tempering the awe inspired by a commanding stature and majestic presence with a love and confidence which even the youngest and most timid ward of the Court feels at the sound of his kindly voice and the encouraging beam, twinkling with humor, of his tender grey eyes.” Do you mean to tell me that that’s you? The Lord Chancellor It is not for me to say how far the description is an accurate or a happy one, madam; but I believe I am the person intended by the writer. Mercer Producing another paper. Perhaps you’d recognize this better, Miss. Sir Cardonius and me is on opposite sides in politics. Anastasia Taking the paper and reading at the place he indicates. “How much longer will the nation allow this despicable pantaloon to occupy the woolsack⁠—” What’s the woolsack? Mercer What the Lord Chancellor sits on in the House of Lords, Miss. Anastasia Continuing her reading. “whose contents only too strongly resemble those of his own head.” That’s a nasty one, you know: isn’t it? It means that your brains are woolly, doesn’t it? The Lord Chancellor Its meaning is entirely beneath my notice. I’m surprised, Mercer, to find you in possession of a scurrilous rag of this character. We may differ in our opinions; but if any paper taken in by me were to speak of you in such unbecoming terms, I should never open it again. Mercer Well, my lord; politics is politics; and after all, what is politics if it isn’t showing up the other side? When I pay a penny for a paper I’ve a right to get value for my money the same as any other man. Anastasia But I don’t understand. To the Chancellor. Are you a despicable pantaloon? The other paper says your name will be cherished by the warm hearts of the English people when Eldon and Sir Thomas More are forgotten. I thought that whatever is in the papers must be true. How do you explain being a great Chancellor and a despicable pantaloon at the same time? The Lord Chancellor I take it that the excellent journal from which you first quoted has put all considerations of party aside, and simply endeavored to place before you a dispassionate estimate of such modest services as I have been able to render to my country. The other paper gives you nothing but the vituperative ravings of an illiterate penny-a-liner blinded by party passion. Mercer You should never read more than one paper, Miss. It unsettles the mind, let alone the waste of a penny. Anastasia Well, it’s a great relief to me to hear that the Great Chancellor paper is the right one. To the Lord Chancellor. You think I may believe everything it says? The Lord Chancellor I trust I shall not disappoint any favorable opinion you may have founded on it. Anastasia It says here that though you are stern with the worthless and merciless to the impostor, yet your mature wisdom and unparalleled legal knowledge are freely at the service of all deserving persons, and that no distressed suitor has ever been turned empty away from your door. The Lord Chancellor That refers to my private house, madam. I don’t keep food here. Mercer I have a sandwich for my lunch, Miss. Sooner than send you empty away, I would give it to you, Miss, most joyfully. Anastasia I ask, not charity, but justice. The Lord Chancellor Madam: I must request you to speak like a lady and not like a procession of the unemployed. The House of Lords always gives charity and never gives justice. Mercer The House of Lords will find itself unemployed one of these days, if you ask me. The Lord Chancellor Silence, Mercer. Have the goodness to keep your Radicalism to yourself in the presence of this lady. Anastasia Why do you allow your clerk to be a Radical? The Lord Chancellor Well, madam, to make him a Conservative and an Imperialist I should have to raise his salary very considerably; and I prefer to save money and put up with a Radical. Anastasia You’ll excuse me asking you all these questions; but as I’ve decided, after what the paper says, that you are the man to advise me and be a father to me, it’s very important that you should be quite all right, isn’t it? The Lord Chancellor But