Stephen Archer, and Other Tales

Mrs. C. I have my reasons.

Col. G. What are they?

Mrs. C. Never mind.

Col. G. I insist upon knowing them.

Mrs. C. It would break my heart, Walter, to quarrel with you, but I will if you use such an expression.

Col. G. But why shouldn't you bring Miss Lacordère with you?

Mrs. C. He's but a boy, and it might put some nonsense in his head.

Col. G. She's a fine girl. You make a friend of her.

Mrs. C. She's a good girl, and a lady-like girl; but I don't want to meddle with the bulwarks of society. I hope to goodness they will last my time.

Col. G. Clara, I begin to doubt whether pride be a Christian virtue.

Mrs. C. I see! You'll be a radical before long. Everything is going that way.

Col. G. I don't care what I am, so I do what's right. I'm sick of all that kind of thing. What I want is bare honesty. I believe I'm a tory as yet, but I should be a radical to-morrow if I thought justice lay on that side.—If a man falls in love with a woman, why shouldn't he marry her?

Mrs. C. She may be unfit for him.

Col. G. How should he fall in love with her, then? Men don't fall in love with birds.

Mrs. C. It's a risk—a great risk.

Col. G. None the greater that he pleases himself, and all the more worth taking. I wish my poor boy—

Mrs. C. Your poor boy might please himself and yet not succeed in pleasing you, brother!

Col. G. (aside). She knows something.—I must go and see about his dinner. Good-bye, sister.

Mrs. C. Good-bye, then. You will have your own way!

Col. G. This once, Clara. Exeunt severally.

END OF ACT II

ACT III

SCENE.—A garret-room. MATTIE. SUSAN

Mat. At the worst we've got to die some day, Sue, and I don't know but hunger may be as easy a way as another.

Sus. I'd rather have a choice, though. And it's not hunger I would choose.

Mat. There are worse ways.

Sus. Never mind: we don't seem likely to be bothered wi' choosin'.

Mat. There's that button-hole done. (Lays down her work with a sigh, and leans back in her chair.)

Sus. I'll take it to old Nathan. It'll be a chop a-piece. It's wonderful what a chop can do to hearten you up.

Mat. I don't think we ought to buy chops, dear. We must be content with bread, I think.

Sus. Bread, indeed!

Mat. Well, it's something to eat.

Sus. Do you call it eatin' when you see a dog polishin' a bone?

Mat. Bread's very good with a cup of tea.

Sus. Tea, indeed! Fawn-colour, trimmed with sky-blue!—If you'd mentioned lobster-salad and sherry, now!

Mat. I never tasted lobster-salad.

Sus. I have, though; and I do call lobster-salad good. You don't care about your wittles: I do. When I'm hungry, I'm not at all comfortable.

Mat. Poor dear Sue! There is a crust in the cupboard.

Sus. I can't eat crusts. I want summat nice. I ain't dyin' of 'unger. It's only I'm peckish. Very peckish, though. I could eat—let me see what I could eat:—I could eat a lobster-salad, and two dozen oysters, and a lump of cake, and a wing and a leg of a chicken—if it was a spring chicken, with watercreases round it—and a Bath-bun, and a sandwich; and in fact I don't know what I couldn't eat, except just that crust in the cupboard. And I do believe I could drink a whole bottle of champagne.

Mat. I don't know what one of those things tastes like—scarce one; and I don't believe you do either.

Sus. Don't I?—I never did taste champagne, but I've seen them eating lobster-salad many a time;—girls not half so good-lookin' as you or me, Mattie, and fine gentlemen a waitin' upon 'em. Oh dear! I am so hungry! Think of having your supper with a real gentleman as talks to you as if you was fit to talk to—not like them Jew-tailors, as tosses your work about as if it dirtied their fingers—and them none so clean for all their fine rings!

Mat. I saw Nathan's Joseph in a pastrycook's last Saturday, and a very pretty girl with him, poor thing!

Sus. Oh the hussy to let that beast pay for her!

Mat. I suppose she was hungry.

Sus. I'd die before I let a snob like that treat me. No, Mattie! I spoke of a real gentleman.

Mat. Are you sure you wouldn't take Nathan's Joseph for a gentleman if he was civil to you?

Sus. Thank you, miss! I know a sham from a real gentleman the moment I set eyes on him.

Mat. What do you mean by a real gentleman, Susan?

Sus. A gentleman as makes a lady of his girl.

Mat. But what sort of lady, Sue? The poor girl may fancy herself a lady, but only till she's left in the dirt. That sort of gentleman makes fine speeches to your face, and calls you horrid names behind your back. Sue, dear, don't have a word to say to one of them—if he speaks ever so soft.