_Frederick’s room; open portmanteaus, &c. lying about. Near the
fireplace R. is a cupboard with key in lock. A table in centre._
_Enter FREDERICK carrying music, and TRISTRAM._
_FREDERICK._
All my clothes are in, you say, Tristram?
_TRISTRAM._
Everything, sir.
_F._ You pack well, Tristram: put in these. (_handing music._) Is there
room for the music?
_T._ Anything, sir. Lie there, ye wrigglers. (_begins to sing to
himself._)
_F._ And this book.
_T._ Where is it you may be going, if you please,
sir? 2350
_F._ Never mind. You pack very well, Tristram. I shall miss you.
_T._ If the Countess has sent you to Milan, will you not want your best
black velvet doublet?
_F._ I shall wear that on the journey.
_T._ Wear your best black velvet on the road! Well!—Stay we long away,
sir?
_F._ Never mind. Now shut it up and give me the key.
_T._ I should like to know, sir, how long we stay
away, and when we are to start. 2360
_F._ Give me the key. Now, Tristram, I understand that the Countess has
dismissed you from her household. That saves me explanation. Here’s
your wages (_puts money on the table_) for the current quarter. You are
no more my servant.
_T._ Good heavens! do you discharge me, sir? I beg, what have I done to
offend you?
_F._ Never mind.
The Countess has discharged you,—that’s enough.
Tho’you’re a fool, Tristram, to say the truth,
I have got accustomed to you, and shall be sorry
To part with you. I have quite as many reasons
For wishing you to stay, as you have given me
To be dissatisfied. But so ’tis fated; 2375
_And what God willeth_, Tristram, _needs must be,
After the opinion of certain clerkës_.
_T._ I am not to go with you to-day to Milan?
_F._ No, Tristram. Now we part.
_T._ Consider, sir,
That Flora is discharged as well as me: 2380
Cannot you take us with you?
_F._ You and Flora
With me!
_T._ What shall we do, sir? What shall we do?
_F._ I’ll tell you what. While you were in my service
You served me ill, pried into my affairs,
Took bribes to spy upon me:—I know,—attend.
If you would win my favour, you must serve me
Now you are discharged. You can assist me, and if
You serve me better, I’ll use my interest, Tristram,
To get you a decent place.
_T._ What is’t to do?
_F._ ’Tis this. An hour from hence I must be off.
St. Nicholas will likely enough be here 2391
After his marriage settlement. Now, Tristram,
He must not find me. Wait for him here:—do you see?—
And if he comes, get him out of the way.
And if Ricardo comes, tell him that I
Am gone to seek him and shall soon return:
Bid him await me here. If by your help
I get off quickly, I will help you; if not,
Tristram, I’ll cut your throat from ear to ear. [_Exit._
_T._ Heavens! what has possessed my master, and
what’s to happen to me? O wala, wala! It all comes
of love: or rather, I should say, it all came of my hat.
I would it had been consumed entirely. This hole in
the crown is not to be mended ... and all round
’tis like tinder, it breaks with a touch. Of what contemptible
material are these hats made! It might have
been sewn up else. Now ’tis a picture of me. Yes, the
hat is me, as it were; the hole in the crown is the ruin
of my fortunes wrought upon me by the fiery lamp,
which is my love for Flora. There’s a parable. Could
I write a poem on this, it might appease the Countess.
Deary me! What are Flora and I to do? Money being
the root of all evil, I must look first to that. All
depends on that. Let me see what I can muster.
There’s my pay; there’s the Countess’present, and
my little savings. (_turns out his purse and pockets on to
the table._) I’ll put it all in heaps of ten. No, heaps
of five: better in fives, there’ll be more heaps; and
there’s comfort in the number of heaps. Tho’less
lordly, ’twill be more showy. Five, ten, fifteen,
twenty. (_knocking at door._) Come in,—twenty-five.
_Enter St. Nicholas._
_ST. NICHOLAS._
Tristram! Where’s your master?
_T._ Twenty-five. My master’s no more. Twenty-six.
_N._ Frederick is dead?
_T._ (_singing_). What dead, my dearie?
Oh no, my dearie.
_N._ What is this nonsense, Tristram?
_T._ When I meet with a poet, St. Nicholas, I can
speak poetry. 2430
_N._ I came to see your master, Tristram;
and you said he was dead.
_T._ I said he was no more, not that he was dead:
and, as I say, he is no more my master. I am, as
’twere, a gentleman at large; and I sit here by invitation,
engaged on my own affairs, which do not need
assistance.
_N._ I came to see your master on important business,
Tristram. Be civil enough to tell me where he is.
_T._ My master is nowhere. This was twenty-six.
_N._ I shall wait for him here.
_T._ Well, if you choose to wait, I know what
you come after. ’Tis not the sonnet.
_N._ When will Frederick be back, Tristram?
_T._ But I’ll give you back your sonnet, if you will
write me a poem about my hat, this hat. ’Tis but to
versify my own imaginations. See! I am the hat: the
hole in it is my discharge: the flame which burnt the
hole is Flora,—that’s the Countess’maid. All is good.
There’s the blackness of the hat, the fire of the lamp,
the abysm of the hole: it lacks but the moon, which
you might shift to see through the crown; and if you
could weave in with that your sphinx and something
about death, I think that I might tickle the Countess’
ear to reconsider of my discharge; for she loves
poetry.
_N._ Curse thy impertinence, Tristram. Where’s thy
master?
_T._ I will shew you where your master is, if you
curse me or aught of mine, master Nick.
_N._ Darst thou speak to me thus? 2460
_T._ Did you not call me a thief, and base-born
clown?
_N._ Art thou not both?
_T._ Whate’er I be, Mr. Poet, I have now no master,
nor any obligation to any gentleman to make believe
for his convenience that thou art aught. Thou! Why
thy brainpan hath nought in it but shoddy, I warrant.
Thou combed ass! thou left-handed goose!—to curse
me! 2470
_N._ By heaven, I cannot away with thee.
_T._ No, that you can’t. (_Aside._) I have it. I’ll shut
him in the screeky cupboard.—Well, sir: I know what
you come after. ’Tis the marriage papers, is it not?
I was bid see to them. Look in that cupboard.
_N._ Ah! are they there? (_Goes to cupboard and looks in.
T. pushes him behind, and shuts door on him, locking it._)
_T._ There curse me, and seek your papers.—(_Aside._)
I think I have him now. If this does not satisfy my
master, I’ll never try to please him again. 2480
_N._ (_within_). Let me out at once. There are no
papers here. What did you shut me in here for?
_T._ To follow your occupation—to lounge, lounge
in the cupboard. Am I a thief?
_N._ Let me out, I beg of you, Tristram.
_T._ Not till you have made my poem, or told me
a cure for the rheumatics. Ay, bawl and kick: I
will finish my accounts. Kick away, one for each
pile. Twenty-six it was: twenty-seven, twenty-eight,
twenty-nine, thirty. Why you overdo it: you kick by
the ducat. With three and a half, (_pocketing._) thirty-three
ducats and a half. Silence! silence! ’Tis more
kicks than half-pence, as they say. If you will be quiet,
I will give you back your sonnet. (_Takes it out and
reads_)—
_Master of mine, remember for pitie._
Ha! who’s your master now?—I will recite the end
part, which I have never read.
_Once in a vesture of pale crimson came
That willowed Archdelight, whose eyes are dim
With gazing on a book of writhing flame:_ 2501
My stars! and no wonder neither.
_And with him Hope, the stringless harp-player,
Himself an embelem, harped in mine ear
His long-lost Sapphic song and nuptial hymn._
Hem! Very good, sir, as far as it goes. You should
finish this and have it ready by the wedding. See!
I will thrust it to you under the door. Won’t you take
it back? If I have not charmed him to sleep with his
own verses! Ha! he bites—he lives. (_N. pulls it to
him from within._) (_To himself._) This is very well. But
I wonder why my master wished him out of the way;
and why he is sent to Milan; and taking all these
things with him; and why he is travelling in that
doublet. He hath no care for his clothes. Yet I’ll do
him a last service, and brush it for him. ’Tis sadly
dusty (_having taken it down_). He shall not say that his
old valet neglected him in aught. So lie there. (_puts
doublet on table._) Pockets full, of course. If I were
a gentleman, I’d have no pockets. How can velvet
lie? How can one smoothe it down, stuffed out in
a lump like this ... an old handkerchief, I’ll warrant
... no ... a glove: a lady’s glove: a very secret
affair: one he hath stolen to write verses on. I shall
tell the Countess of this. (_Knocking at the door heard._)
This will be Mister Ricardo, I suppose. Come in!
_Enter Sir Gregory._
_GREGORY._
Tristram, where’s your master? Not at home?
_T._ _shakes his head._
_G._ Do you know where he is?
_T._ _shakes._
_G._ Has St. Nicholas been here? 2530
_T._ _nods._
_G._ Is he gone?
_T._ _nods._
_N._ (_kicking harder_), Sir Gregory! Sir Gregory! I am here!
_G._ Do you expect your master soon?
_T._ _nods._
_G._ I may sit and await him?
(_T. bows and gives a chair. G. sits to table, T. takes doublet from
table. The glove falls on the floor. G. takes out papers, and lays
them on the table to read them._)
_T._ (_hanging up doublet_). Now shall the cupboard-door speak to the
old gentleman. (_pretends to busy himself. N. makes a great knocking._)
_G._ Come in! There is some one at the door, Tristram.
_T._ _shakes._
_G._ I think there is. (_goes to the door and opens it: finds no one,
and returns._)
(_Aside._) Frederick is unaccountably remiss,
Most unaccountably remiss.—
Tristram, I am sure I hear a noise. What is it?
_T._ (_going up to G., shouts in his ear_).
They are sweeping the chimney in the next room, Sir Gregory.
_G._ Ah.—You would much oblige me, Tristram, if
you would go and seek your master, and tell him that
I am here.
_T._ (_nodding_). I can’t refuse, and I’ve done my duty
by St. Nicholas. Yet ’tis sad to miss any of this play.
I will go, and be back in a trice. (_Passing the cupboard,
to N._) Thou silly! he’ll never mind thee.
_N._ Curse you, Tristram!
_T._ Hush thee, my babe. [_Exit._
_G._ (_walks about restlessly_).
The man’s as strange as his master. How Diana
Can trust her affairs to one so wholly unfit,
So unmethodical! And what discomfort
The fellow lives in. The room in such disorder:
He might be going away for good. Two such 2560
Immense portmanteaux. What’s all that for now?
There is something going on that I do not know of....
Tristram’s discharged ... that’s true. (_sees glove on
floor; and picks it up mechanically to put it on the table._)
A lady’s glove!
Yes, ’tis a lady’s; thrown upon the floor.
What see I? that embroidery ... ’Tis Laura’s;
Laura’s. St. Nicholas hath been here.—
No, no. Yet the only other explanation....
It cannot be ... I see it all.... ’Tis true....
Her tears and strange farewell to me this morning:
Her treatment of St. Nicholas: and Frederick,
Why he mistook the contract ... these portmanteaux.—
By heaven, by heaven, there’s no time to lose:
They’re off. (_going out, passes close to cupboard.
N. makes more noise than ever._)
Ha!—Heigh!
’Tis here, then: not in the chimney. Eh!—who’s here?
(_Opens cupboard._) St. Nicholas!
_N._ O, Sir Gregory, you would not hear.
_G._ Who shut you in the cupboard?
_N._ Tristram.
_G._ Tristram?
_N._ _assents._
_G._ And is this Laura’s glove? Look at it.
_N._ (_nodding_). It is.
_G._ Then tell me: did you bring it here? Could you
By any chance have dropped it here?
_N._ (_disclaiming by gesture_). I? No, sir.
I came to seek for Frederick.
_G._ (_to himself_). What can this mean, 2580
Unless to keep his rival out of the way?—
Listen, St. Nicholas, I have discovered something
Concerns you nearly.—I think—I am sure—
Nay: I’ll not tell you what I suspect....
’Tis but suspicion. But you have been, I fear,
Most shamefully beguiled.
_N._ Ay, that I was.
He said that I should find my settlement
In the cupboard.
_G._ Patience. I will go to Laura
And learn the truth. Meanwhile, seek out the Countess,
And beg her give me an interview at once. 2590
I’ll come to the ante-chamber. By heaven, St. Nicholas....
And yet I scarce know.... There’s no time to lose:
Come quickly. [_Exeunt._