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SATURDAY, JUNE 18, 1870.
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THE MYSTERY OF MR. E. DROOD,
By ORPHEUS C. KERR.,
Continued in this Number:
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Albany to Troy.
THE MYSTERY OF MR. E. DROOD.
AN ADAPTATION.
BY ORPHEUS C. KERR.
CHAPTER III.
THE ALMS-HOUSE.
For the purpose of preventing an inconvenient rush of literary
tuft-hunters and sight-seers thither next summer, a fictitious name must
be bestowed upon the town of the Ritualistic church. Let it stand in
these pages as Bumsteadville. Possibly it was not known to the Romans,
the Saxons, nor the Normans by that name, if by any name at all; but
a name more or less weird and full of damp syllables can be of little
moment to a place not owned by any advertising Suburban-Residence
benefactors.
A disagreeable and healthy suburb, Bumsteadville, with a strange odor of
dried bones from its ancient pauper burial-ground, and many quaint
old ruins in the shapes of elderly men engaged as contributors to the
monthly magazines of the day. Antiquity pervades Bumsteadville; nothing
is new; the very Rye is old; also the Jamaica, Santa Cruz, and a number
of the native maids. A drowsy place, with all its changes lying far
behind it; or, at least, the sun-browned mendicants passing through say
they never saw a place offering so little present change.
In the midst of Bumsteadville stands the Alms-House; a building of an
antic order of architecture; still known by its original title to the
paynobility and indigentry of the surrounding country, several of
whose ancestors abode there in the days before voting was a certain
livelihood; although now bearing a door-plate inscribed, "Macassar
Female College, Miss CAROWTHERS." Whether any of the country editors,
projectors of American Comic papers, and other inmates of the edifice in
times of yore, ever come back in spirit to be astonished by the manner
in which modern serious and humorous print can be made productive of
anything but penury by publishing True Stories of Lord BYRON and the
autobiographies of detached wives, maybe of interest to philosophers,
but is of no account to Miss CAROWTHERS. Every day, during school-hours,
does Miss CAROWTHERS, in spectacles and high-necked alpaca, preside over
her Young Ladies of Fashion, with an austerity and elderliness
before which every mental image of Man, even as the most poetical of
abstractions, withers and dies. Every night, after the young ladies have
retired, does Miss CAROWTHERS put on a freshening aspect, don a more
youthful low-necked dress--
As though a rose
Should leave its clothes
And be a bud again,--
and become a sprightlier Miss CAROWTHERS. Every night, at the same hour,
does Miss CAROWTHERS discuss with her First Assistant, Mrs. PILLSBURY,
the Inalienable Bights of Women; always making certain casual reference
to a gentleman in the dim past, whom she was obliged to sue for breach
of promise, and to whom, for that reason, Miss CAROWTHERS airily refers,
with a toleration bred of the lapse of time, as "Breachy Mr. BLODGETT."
The pet pupil of the Alms-House is FLORA POTTS, of course called the
Flowerpot; for whom a husband has been chosen by the will and bequest of
her departed papa, and at whom none of the other Macassar young ladies
can look without wondering how it must feel. On the afternoon after the
day of the dinner at the boarding-house, the Macassar front-door bell
rings, and Mr. EDWIN DROOD is announced as waiting to see Miss FLORA.
Having first rubbed her lips and cheeks, alternately, with her fingers,
to make them red; held her hands above her head to turn back the
circulation and make them white; and added a little lead-penciling to
her eyebrows to make them black; the Flowerpot trips innocently down
to the parlor, and stops short at some distance from the visitor in a
curious sort of angular deflection from the perpendicular.
"O, you absurd creature!" she says, placing a finger in her mouth and
slightly wriggling at him. "To go and have to be married to me whether
we want to or not! It's perfectly disgusting."
"Our parents _did_ rather come a little load on us," says EDWIN DROOD,
not rendered enthusiastic by his reception.
"Can't we get a _habeas corpus_, or some other ridiculous thing, and ask
some perfectly absurd Judge to serve an injunction on somebody?" she
asks, with pretty earnestness. "Don't, Eddy--do-o-n't." "Don't what,
FLORA?" "Don't try to kiss me, please." "Why not, FLORA?" "Because I'm
enameled." "Well, I do think," says EDWIN DROOD, "that you put on the
Grecian Bend rather heavily with me. Perhaps I'd better go."
"I wouldn't be so exquisitely hateful, Eddy. I got the gum-drops last
night, and they were perfectly splendid."
"Well, that's a comfort, at any rate," says her affianced, dimly
conscious of a dawning civility in her last remark. "If it's really
possible for you to walk on those high heels of yours, FLORA, let's try
a promenade out-doors."
Here Miss CAROWTHERS glides into the room to look for her scissors, is
reminded by the scene before her of Breachy Mr. BLODGETT; whispers,
"Don't trifle with her young affections, Mr. DROOD, unless you want to
be sued, besides being interviewed by all the papers;" and glides out
again with a sigh.
FLORA then puts upon her head a fig-leaf trimmed with lace and ribbon,
and gets her hoop and stick from behind the hall-door. EDWIN DROOD takes
from one of his pockets an india-rubber ball, to practice fly-catches
with as he walks; and driving the hoop and throwing and catching the
ball, the two go down the ancient turnpike of Bumsteadville together.
"Oh, please, EDDY, scrape yourself close to the fences, so that the
girls can't see you out of the windows," pleads FLORA. "It's so utterly
absurd to be walking with one that one's got to marry whether one likes
it or not; and you do look so perfectly ridiculous in that short coat,
and all your other things so tight."
He gloomily scrapes against the fences, dropping his ball and catching
it on the rebound at every step. "Which way shall we go?" "Up by the
store, EDDY, dear."
They go to the all-sorts country store in question, where EDWIN DROOD
buys her some sassafras bull's-eye candy, and then they turn toward home
again.
"Now be a good-tempered EDDY," she says, trundling her hoop beside him,
"and pretend that you aren't going to be my husband." "Not if I can help
it," he says, catching the ball almost spitefully. "Then you're going to
have somebody else?" "You make my head ache, so you do," whispers EDWIN
DROOD. "I don't want to marry anybody at all!"
She tickles him under the arm with her hoop-stick, and turns eyes that
are all serious upon his. "I wish, EDDY, that we could be perfectly
absurd friends to each other, instead of utterly ridiculous engaged
people. It's exquisitely awful, you know, to have a husband picked out
for you by dead folks, and I'm so sick about it sometimes that I hardly
have the heart to fix my back-hair. Let each of us forbear, and stop
teasing the other."
Greatly pleased by this perfectly intelligent and forgiving arrangement,
EDWIN DROOD says: "You're right, FLORA, Teasing is played out;" and
drives his ball into a perfect frenzy of bounces.
They have arrived near the Ritualistic church, through the windows of
which come the organ-notes of one practising within. Something familiar
in the grand air rolling out to them causes EDWIN DROOD to repeat,
abstractedly, "I feel--I feel--I feel---"
FLORA, simultaneously affected in the same way, unconsciously
murmurs,---"I feel like a morning star."
They then join hands, under the same irresistible spell, and take
dancing steps, humming, in unison, "Shoo, fly! don't bodder me."
"That's JACK BUMSTEAD'S playing," whispers EDWIN DROOD; "and he must be
breathing this way, too, for I can smell the cloves."
"O, take me home," cries FLORA, suddenly throwing her hoop over the
young man's neck, and dragging him violently after her. "I think cloves
are perfectly disgusting."
At the door of the Alms-House the pretty Flowerpot blows a kiss to
EDWIN, and goes in. He makes one trial of his ball against the door, and
goes off. She is an in-fant, he Js an off-'un.
CHAPTER IV.
MR. SWEENEY.
Accepting the New American Cyclopædia as a fair standard of
stupidity--although the prejudice, perhaps, may arise rather from the
irascibility of the few using it as a reference, than from the calm
judgment of the many employing it to fill-out a showy book-case--then
the newest and most American Cyclopædist in Bumsteadville is Judge
SWEENEY.
[Footnote: Mr. SAPBEA, the original of this character In Mr. DICKENS'
romance, is an auctioneer. The present Adapter can think of no nearer
American equivalent, in the way of a person at once resident in a suburb
and who sells to the highest bidder, than a supposable member of the New
York judiciary.]
It is Judge SWEENEY'S pleasure to found himself upon Father DEAN, whom
he greatly resembles in the intellectual details of much forehead,
stomach, and shirt-collar. When upon the bench in the city, even,
granting an injunction in favor of some railroad company in which he
owns a little stock, he frequently intones his accompanying remarks
with an ecclesiastical solemnity eminently calculated to suppress every
possible tendency to levity in the assembled lawyers; and his discharge
from arrest of any foreign gentleman brought before him for illegal
voting, has often been found strikingly similar in sound to a pastoral
Benediction.
That Judge SWEENEY has many admirers, is proved by the immense local
majority electing him to judicial eminence; and that the admiration is
mutual is likewise proved by his subsequent appreciative dismissal of
certain frivolous complaints against a majority of that majority
for trifling misapprehensions of the Registry law. He is a portly,
double-chinned man of about fifty, with a moral cough, eye-glasses
making even his red nose seem ministerial, and little gold ballot-boxes,
locomotives, and five-dollar pieces, hanging as "charms" from the chain
of his Repeater.
Judge SWEENEY'S villa is on the turnpike, opposite the Alms-House, with
doors and shutters giving in whichever direction they are opened; and he
is sitting near a table, with a sheet of paper in his hand, and a bowl
of warm lemon tea before him, when his servant-girl announces "Mr.
BUMSTEAD."
"Happy to see you, sir, in my house, for the first time," is Judge
SWEENEY'S hospitable greeting.
"You honor me, sir," says Mr. BUMSTEAD, whose eyes are set, as though he
were in some kind of a fit, and who shakes hands excessively. "You are
a good man, sir. How do you do, sir? Shake hands again, sir. I am very
well, sir, I thank you. Your hand, sir. I'll stand by you, sir--though I
never spoke t' you b'fore in my life. Let us shake hands, sir."
But instead of waiting for this last shake, Mr. BUMSTEAD abruptly turns
away to the nearest chair, deposits his hat in the very middle of the
seat with great care, and recklessly sits down upon it.
The lemon tea in the bowl upon the table is a fruity compound,
consisting of two very thin slices of lemon, which are maintained in
horizontal positions, for the free action of the air upon their upper
surfaces, by a pint of whiskey procured for that purpose. About half a
pint of hot water has been added to help soften the rind of the lemon,
and a portion of sugar to correct its acidity.
With a wave of the hand toward this tropical preserve, Judge SWEENEY
says: "You have a reputation, sir, as a man of taste. Try some lemon
tea."
Energetically, if not frantically, his guest holds out a tumbler to be
filled, immediately after which he insists upon shaking hands again.
"You're a man of insight, sir," he says, working Judge SWEENEY back and
forth in his chair. "I _am_ a man of taste, sir, and you know the world,
sir."
"The _World_?" says Judge SWEENEY, complacently. "If you mean the
religious female daily paper of that name, I certainly do know it. I
used to take it for my late wife when she was trying to learn Latin."
"I mean the terrestrial globe, sir," says Mr. BUMSTEAD, irritably.
"The great spherical foundation, sir, upon which Boston has since been
built."
"Ah, I see," says Judge SWEENEY, genially, "I believe, though, that I
know that world, also, pretty well; for, if I have not exactly been to
foreign countries, foreign countries have come to me. They have come to
me on--hem!--business, and I have improved my opportunities. A man comes
to me from a vessel, and I say 'Cork,' and give him Naturalization
Certificates for himself and his friends. Another comes, and I say
'Dublin;' another, and I say 'Belfast.' If I want to travel still
further, I take them all together and say 'the Polls.'"
"You'll do to travel, sir," responds Mr. BUMSTEAD, abstractedly helping
himself to some more lemon tea; "but I thought we were to talk about the
late Mrs. SWEENEY."
"We were, sir," says Judge SWEENEY, abstractedly removing the bowl to a
sideboard on his farther side. "My late wife, young man, as you may be
aware, was a Miss HAGGERTY, and was imbued with homage to Shape. It was
rumored, sir, that she admired me for my Manly Shape. When I offered to
make her my bride, the only words she could articulate were, "O, my!
_I_?"--meaning that she could scarcely believe that I really meant
_her_. After which she fell into strong hysterics. We were married,
despite certain objections on the score of temperance by that corrupt
Radical, her father. From looking up to me too much she contracted an
affection of the spine, and died about nine months ago. Now, sir, be
good enough to run your eye over this Epitaph, which I have composed for
the monument now erecting to her memory."
Mr. BUMSTEAD, rousing from a doze for the purpose, fixes glassy eyes
upon the slip of paper held out to him, and reads as follows:
MARY ANN,
Unlitigating and Unliterary Wife of
HIS HONOR, JUDGE SWEENEY.
In the darkest hours of
Her Husband's fortunes
She was never once tempted to Write for
THE TRIBUNE, THE INDEPENDENT, or THE RIVERSIDE MAGAZINE:
Nor did even a disappointment about a
new bonnet ever induce her to
threaten her husband with
AN INDIANA DIVORCE.
STRANGER, PAUSE,
and consider if thou canst say
the same about
THINE OWN WIFE!
If not,
WITH A RUSH RETIRE.
Mr. BUMSTEAD, affected to tears, interspersed with nods, by his reading,
has barely time to mutter that such a wife was too good to live long in
these days, when the servant announces that "MCLAUGHLIN has come, sir."
JOHN MCLAUGHLIN, who now enters, is a stone-cutter and mason, much
employed in patching dilapidated graves and cutting inscriptions,
and popularly known in Bumsteadville, on account of the dried mortar
perpetually hanging about him, as "Old Mortarity." He is a ricketty man,
with a chronic disease called bar-roomatism, and so very grave-yardy in
his very '_Hic_' that one almost expects a _jacet_ to follow it as a
matter of course.
"JOHN MCLAUGHLIN," says Judge SWEENEY, handing him the paper with the
Epitaph, "there is the inscription for the stone."
"I guess I can get it all on, sir," says MCLAUGHLIN. "Your servant, Mr.
BUMSTEAD."
"Ah, JOHN MCLAUGHLIN, how are you?" says Mr. BUMSTEAD, his hand with the
tumbler vaguely wandering toward where the bowl formerly stood. "By the
way, JOHN MCLAUGHLIN, how came you to be called 'Old Mortarity'? It
has a drunken sound, JOHN MCLAUGHLIN, like one of Sir WALTER SCOTT'S
characters disguised in liquor."
"Never you mind about that," says MCLAUGHLIN. "I carry the keys of the
Bumsteadville[1] churchyard vaults, and can tell to an atom, by a tap
of my trowel, how fast a skeleton is dropping to dust in the pauper
burial-ground. That's more than they can do who call me names." With
which ghastly speech JOHN MCLAUGHLIN retires unceremoniously from the
room.
Judge SWEENEY now attempts a game of backgammon with the man of taste,
but becomes discouraged after Mr. BUMSTEAD has landed the dice in his
vest-opening three times running and fallen heavily asleep in the middle
of a move. An ensuing potato salad is made equally discouraging by
Mr. BUMSTEAD'S persistent attempts to cut up his handkerchief in it.
Finally, Mr. BUMSTEAD[2] wildly finds his way to his feet, is plunged
into profound gloom at discovering the condition of his hat, attempts to
leave the room by each of the windows and closets in succession, and at
last goes tempestuously through the door by accident.
[_To be Continued._]
Wanted for the Lecture-Room.
Beloit, in Wisconsin, boasts a wife who has not spoken to her husband
for fifteen years. Fifteen long years! Happy man!--happy woman! No
insanity, no divorce, no murder, but Silence. Why isn't this wondrous
woman brought to the platform, Miss ANTHONY?
[Footnote 1: Certain fancied points of resemblance having led some
persons to suppose that Bumsteadville means Rochester, the Adapter is
impelled to declare that such is _not_ the case.]
[Footnote 2: In compliance with the modern demand for fine realistic
accuracy in art, the Adapter, previous to making his delineation of Mr.
BUMSTEAD public, submitted it to the judgment of a physician having
a large practice amongst younger journalists and Members of the
Legislature. This authority, after due critical inspection,
pronounced it psychologically correct as a study of monomania a potu.]
[Illustration: _Piscator (to his progeny.)_ "NOW, GEORGE WASHINGTON, YOU
TAKE A GOOD GRIP OF THIS YERE EEL, AND DON'T MUSS YOUR CLOTHES, OR YER
MUDDER 'LL NEBER LET YOU GO FISHIN' AG'IN, SARTIN."]
THE JOYS OF SUMMER.
I've Had my annual dream
Of boats and fishing, Congress-water, cream,
Strawberry-shortcake, lager-bier, iced punch,
And lobster-salad lunch.
It came about midday,
Toward the latter part of "flowering May"--
When nothing's fit to eat, or drink, or wear,
And nothing suits but air.
Let Summer come! said I;
Let _something_ happen quick, or I shall die!
I want to change my diet, clothes,--my skin,--
_Myself_, if not a sin!
(_One_ thing, I would remark,
I didn't dream of: that was Central Park.)
All these (the Park included) I have had;
Of course you think I'm glad.
No, I can't say I am.
Your summer, I must tell you, is a sham!
I _might_, perhaps, have some poetic flights,
If I could sleep o' nights!
But who on earth _can_ sleep
When the thermometer's so awful steep?
The night, if anything, (at least _our_ way,)
Is hotter than the day!
And then--my stars!--_oh_, then!
When sleep would kindly visit weary men,
The dread mosquito stings away his rest.
Ah-h-h! _curse_ that pest!
But breakfast comes,--so soon
You almost wish they'd put it off till noon!
Five minutes' sleep--no appetite--no force:
You're jolly, now, of course!
You sip your breakfast tea--
If with your qualmy stomach 'twill agree,
Or your weak coffee,--weighing, with dismay,
The prospects of the day.
Hot! you may well say Hot,
When Blistering would hit it to a dot!
The cheerful round is brilliantly begun--
And everything "well done."
ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.
_Down East_.--"The Earthly Paradise" is published in Boston. The scene
of the poem is laid elsewhere.
_Miner_.--"Pan in Wall Street" was written by E.C. STEDMAN. The pan
spoken of is not suitable for miners' use.
_Autograph Collector_ says that he has seen in the papers such
statements as the following: "LOWELL'S Under the Willows," "WHITTIER'S
Among the Hills," "PUMPELLY'S Across America and Asia." A.C. wants the
post-office address of either or all of tho gentlemen named. We are
unable to give the information desired.
_Constant Reader_.--What is the meaning of the word "Herc"?
_Answer_.--It is the popular name of one of our Assurance Companies,
only known to its intimate friends. The other name is the "_Hercules_."
_Erie_.--You have been misinformed. Mr. FISK neither appeared as an
Admiral, nor as one of the "Twelve Temptations," at the Reception of the
Ninth Regiment.
_Inquirer_.--The free translation of the legend, "_Ratione aut vi_," on
the Ninth Regiment Badge, is "Strong in rations."
_Wall Street_ asks, "Who are interested in PUNCHINELLO?" Though the
question is not very business-like, we reply, "Every one;" and we are
receiving fresh acquisitions daily.
_Bergh_.--Was the English nightingale ever introduced into this country?
_Answer_.--We cannot say. You had better go to FLORENCE for information
on the subject.
_R.G. White_.--It was a happy thought of yours to apply to PUNCHINELLO
for information regarding Shaksperean readings. To your first question,
"Was SHAKSPEARE'S RICHARD III a gourmand?" we reply: undoubtedly he
was. By adopting what is obviously the correct reading of the
passage--"Shadows to-night," etc., it will be seen that "DICKON" was
occasionally a sufferer from heavy suppers:
----"Shad-roes to-night
Have struck more terror to the soul of RICHARD."
Then, to your second query, "Was SHAKSPEARE'S RICHARD III a cannibal?"
our answer is: Certainly he was. Following the above quotation we have
the line, "Than can the substance," etc. The proper reading is:
"Then Can the substance of ten thousand soldiers."
Famine was staring RICHARD'S army in the face, so that nothing could
be more natural and proper than that he should have issued orders to
butcher ten thousand of his lower soldiers, and have their meat canned
for the subsistence of his "Upper Ten!"
_Knife_.--You have been misinformed. General BUTLER was not a
participator in the Battle of Five Forks, though more than that number
of Spoons has been laid to his charge.
_Anxious Parent_.--Probably the publication to which you refer is the
one entitled "Freedom of the Mind in Willing," not "Freedom of the Will
in Minding." It is not written for the encouragement of recalcitrant
boys.
_Confectioner_, (San Francisco.)--Mr. BEECHER, who wrote the article on
candy, in the _Ledger_, lives in Brooklyn, a town of some importance not
far from this city.
The Nose and the Rose.
The pink-lined parasols now in fashion were devised by some thoughtful
improver of woman, to enhance beauty by imparting a roseate hue to the
complexion. Unfortunately, however, the reflection from the pink
silk does not always reach the face at the right angle. Sometimes it
concentrates altogether upon the most prominent feature of the face, and
then "Red in the Nose is She" becomes applicable to the bearer of the
parasol. _Couleur de rose_ is an expression for all that is lovely and
serene, but the rose must not be worn on the nose.
Going him one Better.
The only difference between the Colossus of Rhodes and King HENRY VIII
was that while Colossus was only a _won_der, King H. was a _Tu_dor.
THE PLAYS AND SHOWS.
[Illustration]
R. J. H. M'VICKER has for some years past conducted a Chicago theatre,
of which he has been lessee, manager, and stock company. The Chicago
people have liked M'VICKER'S Theatre, because it has occasionally
treated them to the novel sensation of a comparatively moral
performance. Occasional morality deftly inserted in the midst of a
season of seductive legs, produces the same effect upon a Chicago
audience that a naughty _opera bouffe_ does upon the New York lovers
of the legitimate drama. In either case there is the charm of foreign
novelty; a charm, however, which soon loses its attraction. _Opera
bouffe_ in New York, and the moral drama in Chicago, can enjoy but a
temporary success. The former city will always return to its love of
standard comedies and SHAKSPEAREAN tragedies, and the latter will sooner
or later clamor for its accustomed legs and its favorite dramas of
bigamy and divorce.
Mr. M'VICKER, having read of the MCFARLAND trial, immediately conceived
the happy idea that the time had come when a Chicago actor would please
a New York audience. Ha therefore flew to this city, by way of the
Mississippi river and the New Orleans and Havana steamships, and last
week made a debut at BOOTH'S Theatre. With an astuteness which reflects
great credit upon his ability as a manager, he astonished the audience,
which had assembled to be shocked by a genuine Chicago performance,
by playing a part which fairly bristles with unnecessarily obtrusive
morality. Thus did he present a double attraction. A Chicago actor would
have been sure, in any case, of the support of the Free Love Press; but
a moral Chicago actor is a surprise which appeals irresistibly to the
love of novelty which exists in the theatre-going breast. The play
in which he made his first appearance here, is entitled "Taking the
Chances," and is from the pen of Mr. CHARLES GAYLER, to whom Dr. WATTS
so beautifully referred in those touching verses:
"Gayler, the Troubadour,
Touched his guitar,"
--and further language to a like effect. Mr. M'VICKER sustained the
character of "PETER POMEROY," one of those oppressive rural Yankees
whose mission seems to be to drive young men into the paths of vice, by
representing virtue as inextricably associated with home-spun garments,
and the manners of an uneducated bull in an unprotected china shop. The
following version of the play will be recognized as literally exact, by
all who have not seen the original.
Taking the Chances.
ACT I.
MR. POMEROY, _a Preposterous Uncle, who regards his nephew_, PETER, _as
a desirable person._ "My dear PETER will he here in a few moments. His
presence will be a real blessing."
MRS. POMEROY. "I am sorry to hear it. He breaks furniture and things,
and I don't like him."
_Enter_ IRRELEVANT PEOPLE, _who make unnecessary remarks, and obviously
exist only to meet_ PETER. _Finally_ PETER _enters, in butternut
clothing and a condition of chronic moral perfection._
PETER. "Jewhillikins! Haow de du, Unkil? Haow are ye, Aunt DEB? Haow is
everybody? Our pigs and chickens and garden-sass is all doin' well."
--_Falls on a chair._
PREPOSTEROUS UNCLE. "Dear, noble, manly fellow."
EVERYBODY ELSE. "Unbearable brute."
_Enter_ BLANCHE POMEROY. "Do I see my dear cousin? I am glad to see you,
but please don't tear all of my dress to pieces."
PETER. "_Jewhillikins!_" "You used to not to mind abaout havin' your
frock torn when you was up at Graniteville. But I s'pose society has
sp'iled you."
_Enter_ PLAUSIBLE VILLAIN, _and whispers to_ BLANCHE--"To-night you must
fly with me. We have not a moment to lose."
PETER. "_Jewhillikins!_ That is the chap that deserted his wife in
Graniteville? I'll fix him."
PLAUSIBLE VILLAIN. "What do I see? A virtuous rustic? Confusion! Can he
suspect me?"
PETER _devotes himself to the virtuous task of insulting every person in
the room, thereby proving how much superior a cow-boy from New Hampshire
is to the wretched resident of the city, whom fate has made a base
and villainous gentleman. The_ PLAUSIBLE VILLAIN _goes through with
a complicated fit of St. Vitus's Dance, by way of preserving a cool
exterior, and thus allaying the suspicions of_ PETER. _Various_ TEDIOUS
PEOPLE _enter and converse tediously with the_ IRRELEVANT PEOPLE. _After
a time the stage-carpenters suddenly decide to lower the curtain, and
thus put an end to an act that might otherwise go on forever._