BOTH. Oh law!
_Exeunt arm-in-arm through window, to stop band._
_Enter CAPTAIN PLUNGER, led by WAITER, L_.
WAITER. This is the public room, sir.
CAPT. Oh, good gracious, do send some one out to stop that very brassy
band. (_it stops_)
WAITER. The band, sir? Oh, that's nothing. You should hear the Christy
Minstrels--them as never play in London, sir--the two men with the
harp and fiddle, the blind man with the accordion, the woman with the
tambourine, the lad with the tin whistle, the three foreign girls with
the two banjoes and a drum, the Punch and Judy Show, the bagpipes, and
the barrel-organs With the monkeys, all agoing at once. It makes it
very lively, sir.
CAPT. Yes, deadly lively.
WAITER. Dumpington is very musical.
CAPT. Then, Dumpington is very different from its musicians.
WAITER. It's the children what they play to, sir. We've a large family
on the ground floor just recovering from the measles, a small family
on the floor above as have just had the whooping cough--oh, in the
night, sir, they whoops awful--and a middling family in the next room
what's just halfway through the scarlet fever; and a very nice attack
they're having.
CAPT. Heaven preserve us! then is Dumpington a hospital?
WAITER. A hospital? I don't know about that, sir. The Montpelier of
the North, they calls it.
CAPT. Who does?
WAITER. Well, the railway companies.
CAPT. How d' you get down to the sea?
WAITER. You go along the pier, sir.
CAPT. Oh, you walk along the pier.
WAITER. Not many people walk, sir--it's a mile long. Trains start
every fifteen minutes.
CAPT. That's if anybody wants to go?
WAITER. Precisely so, sir; but as no one ever does want, they don't
start at all, sir.
CAPT. What the dickens do the people do then?
WAITER. Well, they're mostly wheeled about in Bath chairs.
CAPT. Oh, preserve us! Where is Mrs. Plunger?
WAITER. Went out on the balcony as we came in, sir--with a gentleman.
CAPT. A gentleman! Did she seem to know him?
WAITER. Very much, sir.
CAPT. You can go. I'll join them.
WAITER. Beg your pardon, sir, but I don't think they want you to.
CAPT. Go to the--kitchen, fellow!
_Exit WAITER, L_.
Upon my word, my wife has lost no time in finding a companion. I don't
think that I can pay her a more fitting compliment than that of
following her example. It's a lucky thing for Dumpington I saw Miss
Darlington just now, or I'd have gone by the first train that starts
for anywhere. I wonder if she knows I'm married? Let us hope the
London papers don't reach here. (_sees paper_) What's this? The
"Dumpington Gazette." It's not in that. (_sits down and reads_)
"Salubrity of Dumpington. The slanderous assertion that this
fashionable watering place, the annual rendezvous of such a galaxy of
rank and beauty, is infected with an epidemic, is the baseless calumny
of venomous malignity. The only fifteen cases in the neighbourhood are
yielding rapidly to the invigorating influence of our sea air, and the
unflagging energy and skill of Dr. Mumps, the able and experienced
practitioner, who advertises weekly in the 'Dumpington Gazette.'"
_Meanwhile ETHEL has re-entered, R., and sat beside him._
ETHEL. Do you find the paper very interesting?
CAPT. (_jumping up_) Miss Darlington! I beg ten thousand pardons for
not seeing you before. This is indeed a happy meeting. I was reading
in the paper that a galaxy of rank and beauty was at Dumpington, and I
was wondering where the beauty was, unconscious that it was so near
me.
ETHEL. Very near indeed, for Miss Carruthers is at this hotel.
CAPT. I beg your pardon, who is?
ETHEL. Miss Carruthers.
CAPT. What, is Miss Carruthers Miss Carruthers still?
ETHEL. Oh, dear me, yes.
CAPT. (_aside_) Hurrah! She doesn't know I'm married. "Sound the loud
timbrel o'er Egypt's----" (_a tambourine strikes up outside_) Oh,
dear!
ETHEL. There's that eternal woman with the tambourine; do send her
away, please!
CAPT. (_runs to window_) There, that'll do; we've got no coppers.
(_coming back_) You were saying----
ETHEL. I was saying that Miss Carruthers is still Miss Carruthers, and
is likely to remain so. That is, if men really have the taste that
they pretend to.
CAPT. Do you really think so? Oh, I don't know, she's a dashing girl.
ETHEL. I don't like dashing girls.
CAPT. Well, when I say a dashing girl, I mean she's undeniably
accomplished.
ETHEL. I have heard she paints!
CAPT. Ah, you don't care for her. Well, I admit, she is a little
difficult to understand.
ETHEL. Oh, dear me, no! I call her very plain.
CAPT. And yet she is considered beautiful by some.
ETHEL. I only know one person who considers so, and that's herself.
CAPT. Oh, but I know another.
ETHEL. Do you? What's the curious creature's name?