Writing for Vaudeville Part 56

ALGERNON: You won't sign?

GLADYS: No, do your worst, throw me into the street with my child.

He is sick, dying!!!!

ALGERNON: What's the matter with him? (Goes to bed.) (PHONSIE is heaving and whistling.) Great heavens, he has the heaves. (Goes R.)

BIRDIE: What are you doing for him?

GLADYS: Trying the hot air treatment.

BIRDIE: I should think you would be expert at that.

GLADYS: The doctor says he has grey matter in his brain.

BIRDIE: (Comes down L.) I am sorry, very sorry.

ALGERNON: Sorry! Bah, this is a cheap play for sympathy! (To GLADYS:) Will you sign the papers?

GLADYS: Never, I defy you: (To BIRDIE.) As for you, beautiful fiend that you are, you came between me and my husband; you stole him from me with your dog-faced beauty; I mean doll-faced. But I can see your finish, I can see you taking poison in about fifteen minutes.

BIRDIE: (Over to ALGERNON.) Put me wise, is this true?

ALGERNON: No, 'tis false, false as h.e.l.l!!!!! (Points up.)

GLADYS: It's true, as true as heaven. (Points down.) I swear it.

ALGERNON: (Crosses up to GLADYS.) Why, curse you, I'll--

GLADYS: (With pistol.) Stand back!!!!! I'm a desperate woman!!!!!

ALGERNON: (Center.) Foiled, curse the luck, foiled by a mere slip of a girl.

BIRDIE: What's to be done?

ALGERNON: (Yells.) Silence!!!! (Business.) Once aboard the lugger the girl must and shall be mine!!!!

BIRDIE: But how do you propose to _lug her_ there? (ALGERNON moves up to door.)

GLADYS: Oh, I see it all. You have brought this she-devil here to work off her bad gags on me. Man, have you no heart?

ALGERNON: (Comes down C.) Of course I have a heart. I have also eyes, ears, nose, tongue and--

BIRDIE: Brains, calves' brains--breaded.

ALGERNON: That will be about all from you. Go, leave us!

BIRDIE: Alone?

ALGERNON: Alone!

GLADYS: Alone!

PHONSIE: (In sepulchral tone.) Oh, Gee!

BIRDIE: But it's hardly decent. You need a tamer.

ALGERNON: Go! (Crosses to R.) Go, I say, before it is too late.

BIRDIE: Oh, there's no hurry. Every place is open.

ALGERNON: Don't sa.s.s me, Birdie Bedslatz, but clear out, scat!!!!

BIRDIE: Ain't he the awful scamp? (Starts to door.)

GLADYS: (Clinging to her.) No, you cannot, must not go. Don't leave me alone with that piano mover.

BIRDIE: I must go. I have poison to buy. (At door.) Ah, Algernon O'Flaherty, if there was more men in the world like you, there'd be less women like me--I just love to say that. Ta--ta. (PHONSIE blows pea-shooter at her as she Exits. She screams and grabs cheek.)

ALGERNON: (To GLADYS back.) So, proud beauty, at last we are alone!

GLADYS: Inhuman monster!!! What new villainy do you propose?

ALGERNON: None, it's all old stuff. Listen, Gladys. When I see you again, all the old love revives and I grow mad, mad.

GLADYS: You dare to speak of love to me? Why, from the first moment I saw you, I despised you. And now I tell you to your face that I hate and loathe you, for the vile, contemptible wretch that you are.

ALGERNON: (Center.) Be careful, girl! I can give you wealth, money, jewels--jewels fit for a king's ransom.

GLADYS: (Runs into his arms.) Oh, you can--Where are they?

ALGERNON: They are in hock for the moment, but see, here are the tickets. I shall get them out, anon.

GLADYS: Dastardly wretch!!!!! With your p.a.w.n tickets to try and cop out a poor sewing girl. (Up at door.) There is the door, go!

(Points other way.)

ALGERNON: (Up to her.) Why curse you, I'll--

GLADYS: Strike, you coward! (Chord.) (ALGERNON conducts Chord.)

ALGERNON: Coward!!!! (He conducts same Chord an Octave higher.)

GLADYS: Yes, coward. . . . Now go, and never cross this threshold again!!

ALGERNON: (Going up stage.) So, I'm fired with the threshold gag?

Very well, I go, but I shall return. . . . I shall return! (Exits.)

PHONSIE: (Blows pea-blower after him.) Who was that big stiff, mommer, the instalment man?

GLADYS: No, darling, he is the floor-walker in a slaughter house.