More Portmanteau Plays Part 48

You'll forget all about it after you're fifteen.

JONATHAN

I can talk to you like I used to talk to my mother.

NATHANIEL

Thank you. We're going to be fine friends, aren't we?

JONATHAN

You bet. Is it silly for me to like to write plays?

NATHANIEL

Why do you ask that?

JONATHAN

Because Uncle John says it's silly.

NATHANIEL

Well, it all depends upon the way you look at it, Jonathan. The world has never been able to agree as to what is and what is not silly. Mr. Browning, the poet, might have considered hooks and eyes the silliest things in the world; but to Mr. de Long, they were, no doubt, the most important things in the world. Many men agree with Mr. Browning and many ladies agree with Mr. de Long.

JONATHAN

That's what I think.

NATHANIEL

You and I probably have many thoughts in common.

[_Susan and Mlle. Perrault enter. Mlle. Perrault is a Frenchwoman of exquisite grace and poise. She speaks English fluently, but with a charming accent and an occasional Gallic phrase larding her pleasant sentences. Her entrance into the room is electric. She has already won Susan._

MLLE. PERRAULT

Ah, there you are, Mr. Nathaniel Clay. I met la belle Susanne in the roadway and she told me you were in the lumber room in the carriage house and I say to her, "We shall track him to his lair." Besides, I want to see what a lumber room is.

NATHANIEL

I was hiding from you.

MLLE. PERRAULT

Villain! And this is Jonathan. How do you do? Susanne tells me you write poetry and she writes music and she promise me that you will sing for me.

JONATHAN

I can't sing.

MLLE. PERRAULT

Ah! Susanne tell me you have a theatre and you write plays and paint scenery and write poetry and sing songs and she say if I come here to the lumber room in the carriage house you will play me a tragedy and sing me a song.

JONATHAN

Yes, ma'am.

NATHANIEL

Having introduced yourself to everybody, will you tell me, Susan, how Mlle.

Perrault learned so much in such a little time?

SUSAN

Well, I was waiting for Jonathan to call me.

JONATHAN

Oh, I forgot.

MLLE. PERRAULT

She was sitting like a little fairy in the gra.s.s by the roadway, and I stop my car and ask for Mr. Nathaniel Clay and she say you are here in the lumber room in the carriage house and she tell me many things--because we like each other very, very much and we walk very, very slowly.

NATHANIEL

Now! Now that you know all about Miss Susan Sample and Mr. Jonathan--(_He realizes he doesn't know Jonathan's second name_) I think I shall introduce you by your pen name, Jonathan--Mr. Alexander Jefferson, Sr.

(_To Mlle. Perrault_)

I am going to let them know about you. This, lady and gentleman, is Mlle.

Marthe Perrault of Paris, France. Mlle. Perrault, may I present my friend Susan and my nephew Jonathan?

MLLE. PERRAULT (_falling into the mood_)

I am very, very pleased to see you again, Miss Sample. It is a great pleasure to have the honor of meeting you, Mr. Alexander Jefferson, Sr. I am looking forward to the premiere of your great tragedy, _Zen.o.bia_, of which Miss Sample has been telling me.

SUSAN (_Puts her arms about Mlle. Perrault and Jonathan is uncertain whether to be happy or afraid_)

He wrote lots of others, too.

JONATHAN

Forty-one.

NATHANIEL