Plays of Near & Far Part 22

SLADDER: We'll see Mr. Hippanthigh. (_Enter_ SPLURGE.) Splurge, run after Mr. Hippanthigh and bring him back. Say I've got something to say to him. He's gone that way. Quick!

SPLURGE: Yes, sir. [_Exit._

SLADDER: I've got something to say to _him_ this time.

ERMYNTRUDE: Father! What are you going to do?

SLADDER: I'm going to give him What For.

ERMYNTRUDE: But why, father?

SLADDER: Because he's been giving it to your poor old father.

ERMYNTRUDE: Father----

SLADDER: Well?

ERMYNTRUDE: Be kind to him, father.

SLADDER: O, _I'll_ be kind to him. I'll be _kind_ to him. Just you wait.

I'll be _kind_ to him!

ERMYNTRUDE: But you wouldn't send him away, father. Father, for my sake you wouldn't do that?

SLADDER: O, we haven't _come_ to that yet.

ERMYNTRUDE: But, but--you've sent for him.

SLADDER: O, I've sent for him to give him What For. We'll come to the rest later.

ERMYNTRUDE: But, when you do come to it, father.

SLADDER: Why, when we do come to it, if the young man's any good, I'll not stand in my daughter's way----

ERMYNTRUDE: O, thank you, father.

SLADDER: And if he's no good (_firmly_) I'll protect my child from him.

ERMYNTRUDE: But, father, I don't want to be protected.

SLADDER: If a man's a man, he must be some good at something. Well, this man's chosen the clergyman job. I've nothing against the job, it's well enough paid at the top, but is this young man ever going to get there?

Is he ever going to get off the bottom rung? How long has he been a curate?

ERMYNTRUDE: Eight years, father.

SLADDER: It's a long time.

ERMYNTRUDE: But, father, he would get a vicarage if it wasn't for the bishop. The bishop stands in his way. It isn't nice of him.

SLADDER: If I'd quarrelled with the head of my firm when I was his age, you wouldn't be getting proposals from a curate; no such luck. The dustman would have been more in your line.

ERMYNTRUDE: But, father, he doesn't quarrel with the bishop. His conscience doesn't let him believe in eternal punishment, and so he speaks straight out. I do admire him so for it. He knows that if he was silent he'd have had a good living long ago.

SLADDER: The wife of the head of my firm believed in spirit rapping. Did I go and tell her what an old fool she was? No, I brought her messages from another world as regular as a postman.

[_Steps are heard outside the window._

SLADDER: Run along, my dear, now.

ERMYNTRUDE: Very well, father.

SLADDER: The man that's going to look after my daughter must be able to look after himself. Otherwise _I_ will, till a better man comes.

[_Exit_ ERMYNTRUDE. HIPPANTHIGH _and_ SPLURGE _appear at the window._ HIPPANTHIGH _enters and_ SPLURGE _moves away._

HIPPANTHIGH: You sent for me, Mr. Sladder?

SLADDER: Y-e-s--y-e-s. Take a chair. Now, Mr. Hippanthigh, I haven't often been told off the way you told me off.

HIPPANTHIGH: I felt it to be my duty, Mr. Sladder.

SLADDER: Yes, quite so. Exactly. Well, it seems I'm a thoroughly bad old man, only fit to rob the poor, an out-and-out old ruffian.

HIPPANTHIGH: I never said that.

SLADDER: No. But you made me feel it. I never felt so bad about myself before, not as bad as that. But you, Mr. Hippanthigh, you were the high-falutin' angel with a new bra.s.s halo, out on its bank holiday. Now, how would clandestine love-making strike you, Mr. Hippanthigh? Would that be all right to your way of thinking?

HIPPANTHIGH: Clandestine, Mr. Sladder? I hardly understand you.

SLADDER: I understand that you have been making love to my daughter.

HIPPANTHIGH: I admit it.

SLADDER: Well, I haven't heard you say anything about it to me before.

Did you tell her mother?

HIPPANTHIGH: Er--no.

SLADDER: Perhaps you told me. Very likely I've forgotten it.

HIPPANTHIGH: No.

SLADDER: Well, who _did_ you tell?

HIPPANTHIGH: We--we hadn't told anyone yet.

SLADDER: Well, I think clandestine's the word for it, Mr. Hippanthigh. I haven't had time in my life to bother about the exact[1] meanings of words or any nonsense of that sort, but I think clandestine's about the word for it.

HIPPANTHIGH: It's a hard word, Mr. Sladder.