to the masquerade_.
_Enter_ FOPDOODLE _and_ TOM, _his valet_.
FOPDOODLE.
By Jove, what is it?--Tom, my man, stand firm.--Audacious creature! So
much hair on it, you know. I’d kindly thank you for your card.
JACK.
Apes and conundrums, having been made before pockets, do not carry their
cards. Did you ever husk an ear of corn?
FOPDOODLE.
Audacious beast! Fopdoodle’s no farmer.
JACK.
Then how do you expect to husk me by the ear? For the ear of an ape
stands higher than a vegetable.
FOPDOODLE.
What a misapplication of terms!
JACK.
Why did you not bring your shell with you?
FOPDOODLE.
What shell?
JACK.
The shell of a goose-egg. Go get it, and put yourself in it, or I’ll
make an omelet of you by assault and battery.
[_Moving around_ FOPDOODLE.
FOPDOODLE.
By Jove, you’re a ferocious ape. I’ll have you arrested. Ho, there! Oh,
policeman, come at once, I pray you, and quell this riot. Come, I
command you. But he don’t come. What an abominable government we do
have! If we had a king, then I’d be protected,--a nice, sweet king!
Then, you know, I’d go to court; then I’d be My Lord Fopdoodle. Oh, I’d
dearly love a king.
JACK.
What would you do if an enemy arose?
FOPDOODLE.
Why, then the king would say: Upon the breeze that blows upon the
borders of my land, I sniff the enemy. My lord, my good and trusty Lord
Fopdoodle, hasten. Gather two hundred thousand men or so of our
confiding yeomanry and stanchest citizens. Go put the enemy down.--And I
would do it.
JACK.
But suppose he wouldn’t stay down?
FOPDOODLE.
Tom, my man, stand firm.--When a king puts an enemy down, he puts him
under ground.
JACK.
How would you raise the cash?
FOPDOODLE.
If I saw the treasury running low, I’d rise and thus address the throne
of majesty: Of late, most able king, thy servant, Lord Fopdoodle, whom
thou hast ennobled, hath observed sundry of his former friends,
shopkeepers, swelling with wealth and aping his nobility. I’ll strip
them of their towering ambition by taking off the goods from their top
shelves. And then the king would say, Good my lord, thou art aright; go
thou and do it. And I would go and do it.
JACK.
Would you have any whims?
FOPDOODLE.
Wouldn’t I have whims!--Tom, my man, stand firm.--Thousands of them. If
a king and his lords can’t have their whims, they’re not so good as
other people are. Some day, when the king was in a right good humor, I
would say: Your valiant Majesty, an ape doth offend me much. I have a
whim. I crave a boon, my liege, a boon, my sovereign; and he would say,
I’ll grant it thee. Then I would say, I thank thee, good my sovereign. I
would that all the apes in thy kingdom were destroyed. And he would say,
Take this my signet ring, and let them perish.
JACK.
And you would kill poor Jack?
FOPDOODLE.
Are you Jack? Mr. Northlake’s own son Jack, and cousin to beautiful Miss
Violet? Why, Jack, I could love even an ape if he were cousin to the
beautiful Miss Violet.
JACK.
Would you cozen an ape?
FOPDOODLE.
[_Aside_] I’ll steal into Miss Violet’s secret heart through this
half-open, half-witted gate of a cousin. [_Aloud_] I’m in love. Help me,
Jack. About the king, good Jack, I was but joking; and if I were married
to Miss Violet, and were the king’s lord, I would not hurt a hair on an
ape’s body. Oh, she’s a sweet conundrum; a rose is a conundrum,--why,
I’m a sweet conundrum myself. Jack, you’re a stunning good fellow, an
awfully good ape. Let me stroke ape’s hair.
JACK.
Paws off! You Miss my cousin, but she’ll not miss you. I represent
to-night a missing link which were well found in you. I’m in full
dress,--Nature’s regulation costume for the ape; but you commit a
barefaced outrage with your ape’s nature minus the hair. Meet me at the
masquerade.
[_Going._
FOPDOODLE.
Tom, my man, stand firm!--Don’t go, Jack.--I’ll go too.
[_Exeunt._