Homepage
Login
Profile
BookClubs
dmBox
Read Ebook: Wyoming by Ellis Edward Sylvester
Font size:
Background color:
Text color:
Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page
Ebook has 2114 lines and 58821 words, and 43 pages
Transcriber's Note: Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. Irregularities and inconsistencies in the text have been retained as printed.
THE CONVOLVULUS
A COMEDY IN THREE ACTS
ALLEN NORTON
PRINTED SEPTEMBER, 1914
CARL VAN VECTEN
THOSE CONCERNED
JANE GIBBS GLORIA, HER SISTER KATHRYN DILL JACK HARGRAVE PETER HARGRAVE COL. CHRISTOPHER CRAPSEY
SCENES OF THE PLAY
Act 1. Jane's house on Gramercy Park
Act 2. Peter Hargrave's Apartment
Act 3. Reverting to Act 1
TIME
An Afternoon
THE CONVOLVULUS
ACT I
JACK. So you're getting married, Dill?
DILL. I am, sir. Have you any objections to offer?
JACK. None whatever, Dill. But why tea at this hour? It's only just past lunch.
DILL. It's the very latest thing, sir; all Americans are doing it now. It's to keep up with the London time, sir, and there it's tea-time already.
JACK . What is that, Dill?
DILL. It's a will, sir.
JACK . Never admit that you have a will, Dill. Where there's a will there's a conscience, you know. One must get over such things.
DILL. I'll try to, sir.
JACK . I've some melancholy news, Dill.
DILL. Melancholy for whom, sir?
JACK. For you, Dill, and for my father. I hope you won't take it too seriously when I say you're the living picture of my father.
DILL. Oh, I just adore pictures, sir.
JACK. My father does not adore you, Dill. He took you for his brother.
DILL . Really, sir! Who do you say that I am, sir?
JACK . I say you're the butler, Dill.
DILL. Quite right, sir. Are you a gentleman?
DILL. Your father?
JACK. Nor he either.
DILL. My brother was a gentleman.
JANE. What is it all about, Jack? Yourself? Kathryn? Or merely me?
JACK. None of us, Jane. Dill said that he was getting married.
JANE. Oh, Dill's always getting married. He never does, though.
JACK. And then Dill was telling me about a brother of his, and I was telling him about a brother of my father's. I have never told you, Jane, but father really came here looking for a brother. Sort of a business journey on his part. That is--none of his business whatever. I tell him fathers should begin at home and stay there. But father feels differently. Have you got a husband, Jane? I know that nothing short of marriage will ever stop him.
JANE. I haven't, Jack. But I almost had an English one once.
JACK. No need to explain, Jane. They don't exist. Our men were all killed in the Wars of the Wives. Father says it was they who started that horrible Rebellion in this country, and that it's going on still. Father doesn't believe in matrimony. That's because you're the first person I've had the heart to broach the subject to. I don't think I shall ever marry. It's a fine opportunity for a young man.
JANE. To become your mother, Jack, I might think of it. But a minister can support anything but a wife or a sense of humor.
JACK. Ah! but if father comes into the estate--
JANE. The estate?
JACK. Yes, you see when my grandfather died he left his entire fortune to his second son, at the same time disinheriting us. Said that when father became a minister he handled enough tainted money without hoarding any of his.
JANE. That's too bad, Jack. Not a penny?
JACK. No, just died and damned us.
JANE. He might have left that to his father, mightn't he?
JANE. You don't think he's dead, do you?
Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page