DRAMATIC SUPPLEMENT -TO One Hundred Choice Selections, No. 7 THE LONG-LOST NEPHEW.*-ROBERT C. V. MEYERS. CHARACTERS. MR. ALEXANDER CALAMUS. MISS BELLA BASHFUL. MR. ARTHUR DAUNTLESS. PATTY BLOSSOM, the maid. SCENE-Room in Mr. Calamus' house. Among the other furniture are two chairs with linen slip-covers; two stools; telephone. PATTY (setting room to rights). Oh, dear! to have a lover you never set your eyes on. It's like being the most beautiful creature in the world, and yet born blind. And Aunt Amanda has managed it all for me and sends my accepted husband to me. How nice! The train by this time has arrived with him. The porter at the station was to telephone me when the train was in. In a little while I shall behold Andy Evergreen, who fell in love with my photograph and popped the question through Aunt Amanda. Oh, dear! how queer it feels to be expecting your husband that you've never seen. (Telephone bell rings.) Good gracious! (Runs to telephone and calls in cup.) Halloa! (Listening, then calling.) Yes! (Listening.) The train is in; he will be here in ten minutes! (Calling through cup.) Good-bye! (Dropping cup and running to front.) Oh, how my heart is beating! I love *Copyright, 1886, by P. GARRETT & Co. All rights reserved. 2LL* him better than if I had seen him, I am sure I do. AndOh, here comes Mr. Calamus with Miss Bella! Exit Patty, at the same time enter Mr. Calamus and Bella. MR. CALAMUS. You are the most preposterous girl I ever had anything to do with. The idea of refusing that which I know to be for your best. I would have you to know, miss, that my nephew is good enough to be the husband of a queen! BELLA. I only wish that he was the husband of a queen, or even a princess. MR. C. (mockingly.) And yet he is not good enough for you! BELLA. I say nothing about that. I only say that I will not agree to marry a man whom I have never met, and whose very name you refuse to tell me. MR. C. And I tell you that you shall never marry a man whom I have never met, and whose name you decline to tell me. No, miss; I refuse to tell you my nephew's name for the simple reason that I will not have him subjected to insult when he visits me. You shall meet him as a stranger. BELLA. Which he certainly is to both of us. Because you discover a nephew whom you have not seen for twenty years, you wish me to fascinate him. You're a nice guardian! MR. C. And a nice ward you are. I'll give up my trust, miss, do you hear that? I will have nothing more to do with you. Your fortune may go to the dogs for all I care! BELLA. So many thanks. MR. C. When my poetic mind suggests that you and my long-lost nephew should fancy each other, you begin to talk gibberish about a gentleman you met in the summer, and will not so much as tell me his name. BELLA. No, for you would do your best to prevent my seeing him. MR. C. I certainly should. And you dare to place this anonymous individual in opposition to the son of my sister, who has lived in India for twenty years, and whom I quite accidentally heard of two or three days ago as being here. I tell you it shall be my nephew and not the anonymous fortune-hunter! BELLA. Your nephew, while anonymous, is not a fortune. hunter, it is true! MR. C. Thank you! BELLA. You are the fortune-hunter, guardy! Your actions prove that you desire my poor bit of money for a man I've never seen, whom I don't want to see, whom I should hate if I did see. I tell you that I care for some one else; and I'll never care for your nephew should I live to be a thousand years old, you cruel, cruel old man! MR. C. Very well! Then I have to tell you that you shall not accept the anonymous individual though I fight off the marriage until I am proved contemporary with the most brittle mummy ever palmed off on a side-show of a circus. BELLA. Then you force me to become an old maid. MR. C. You force me to become a mummy. BELLA. I wish I could-I wish I could, for then MR. C. Then you'd marry the anonymous individual, you unfeeling girl! BELLA. I'm not an unfeeling girl! MR. C. You are, to force a poor old man into mummyhood! BELLA. I hope you'll be a mummy! I hope nobody'll buy you when you are a mummy! I hope they'll have to sell you at auction. [Exit Bella, weeping. MR. C. (pacing up and down.) I am determined to protect her from fortune-hunters. I was her father's best friend; my poetic mind sees so much beauty in a wedding between my nephew and Bella, because her father loved my nephew's mother, who jilted him. And my nephew is a wealthy man; no fortune-hunting there. Ah, if I had my will of the anonymous individual! (Telephone bell rings. Mr. C. going to it calls in cup.) Halloa! (Listening; calling.) Yes. (Listening; calling.) Ta! ta! (Coming front.) Hurrah! He will be here immediately. Bella does not know he is coming, no one in the house does. I-I-I-let me go and put on a coat that is fit to meet a long-lost nephew in. [Exit. Enter Mr. Dauntless, looking around. MR. DAUNTLESS. Strange! Where is the newly-discovered uncle? What nonsense it all is,-quite a chapter out of a three-volume novel of half a century ago. His letter told me to telephone him, and I did so, am here, and came in without ringing, as he advised me to do; and he is not here. All this nonsense takes up the time I should be devoting to the tracing of the darling girl I met in the summer, and who received a telegram from her guardian the very day I'd meant to tell her I couldn't live without her. I've been three days searching for her, and a queer old uncle must hear of me and upset my plans by proposing to discover me. Oh, Bella Bashful! why did you not become Bella Bolder, and at least give me your address and an invitation to call! Enter Patty, crying out and running into Mr. Dauntless' arms. PATTY. Oh, you duck! How is Aunt Amanda, and Cousin Silesia, and Uncle Jabez, and the cow, and the little pig with a black ear? "Patty Blossom, will you take this man to be your wedded husband?" "Yes, Mr. Minister, I will." Oh! oh! MR. D. (aside.) An interesting position to be in. This surely cannot be my newly-discovered uncle. (To Patty.) My dear young woman, who are you? PATTY. Oh, you know: Aunt Amanda MR. D. Is Aunt Amanda my newly-discovered uncle's wife? PATTY. You duck, you're joking with me. MR. D. Am I? PATTY. MR. D. Shall it be to-day or to-morrow? Shall what be to-day or to-morrow? PATTY. Oh, you know. MR. D. Do I? PATTY (laughing). You're real funny. MR. D. Am I? PATTY. And Aunt Amanda knows I like funny people. MR. D. Does she? PATTY. Good gracious! can't you say anything but "Do I?" "Am I?" "Does she?" Try! MR. D. Shall I? PATTY. My stars! has Aunt Amanda sent me a questioning machine instead of a man? MR. D. Has she? Why? PATTY (clapping her hands). Oh, I know! this is the latest style of love-making! MR. D. Is it? PATTY. You know it is, you duck. But-but-oh, Gemini! I hear footsteps! I mustn't be found here! You-you-ask You should have come in the back way. Should I? for master. MR. D. PATTY. I can't get you there now. a book-agent. Here is my young lady! Make believe you're Patty runs off, as Bella enters unobserved by Mr. Dauntless. BELLA (pressing hand to her heart). My heart-who is this man? MR. D. Let me collect my scattered energies! Is my newly-discovered uncle the proprietor of a private madhouse? That young woman is the victim of a strange hallucination; because I possess two rather flat feet she imagines that I am a duck. And Aunt Amanda!—the latest style of love-making!-- come in the back way!—I must make believe I am a book-agent! (Bella edging around, sees his face, then clasps her hands delightedly.) I-oh, why did I destroy the little sense I had by entering upon this finding of an uncle? I-(turning and seeing Bella) Bella Bashful! BELLA. MR. D. Mr. Dauntless! I—I—really I am faint—I— BELLA. How did you get here? MR. D. I-I am not certain how; possibly through the door-way. BELLA. No! no! I mean how did you discover me? BELLA. You are confused. MR. D. I-I am. BELLA. YOU-you are. Oh, why don't you make a speech longer than two or three words? MR. D. I'll make one of four,-Bella, I adore you! BELLA (running into his arms). Oh! MR. D. But you here? BELLA. This is my guardian's house,—Mr. Calamus'. What do I hear? BELLA. I should rather ask you how you found me? MR. D. By chance. Bella, did it ever occur to you that chance is a very good friend? BELLA. I trust it may prove so in our case. Listen to me! |