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Read Ebook: Mr. Punch's Dramatic Sequels by Hankin St John Wheeler Edward J Illustrator
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Ebook has 192 lines and 5893 words, and 4 pages
THE UNFORTUNATE MR. EBBSMITH.
EBBSMITH.
You won't forget, Agnes, that we are expecting people to dinner to-night?
AGNES.
Eh?
EBBSMITH.
I was saying, dear, if you will give me your attention for a moment, that I hoped you would not forget that Sir Myles Jawkins and his wife and the Spencers and the Thorntons were dining here to-night.
AGNES.
EBBSMITH.
I only meant that I hoped you had told Jane about dinner. Last time the Jawkinses came you may recollect that you had omitted to order anything for them to eat, and when they arrived there was nothing in the house but some soup, a little cold mutton and a rice-pudding.
AGNES.
Very well
EBBSMITH.
Thank you. And, Agnes, if you could manage to be dressed in time to receive them I should be very much obliged.
AGNES.
EBBSMITH.
Of course. I suppose you will be here to entertain our guests?
AGNES.
EBBSMITH.
My dear Agnes, surely my guests are your guests also.
AGNES.
EBBSMITH.
I don't think we need go into the question of the alteration of the marriage laws.
AGNES.
Ah, yes. You always refuse to listen to my arguments on that subject. You know they are unanswerable.
EBBSMITH.
I only meant that there would hardly be time to discuss the matter at breakfast.
AGNES.
A paltry evasion!
EBBSMITH.
Still, I assume that you will be here to receive our guests--my guests if you prefer it--to-night?
AGNES.
EBBSMITH.
Those Anarchist people whom you are constantly asking to tea? Certainly not.
AGNES.
Then may I ask why I should be at home to receive the Jawkinses?
EBBSMITH.
My dear, you surely realise that the cases are hardly parallel. The only time I was present at one of your Revolutionary tea-parties the guests consisted of a Hyde Park orator who dropped his h's, a cobbler who had turned Socialist by way of increasing his importance in the eyes of the community, three ladies who were either living apart from their husbands or living with the husbands of other ladies, and a Polish refugee who had been convicted, quite justly, of murder. You cannot pretend to compare the Jawkinses with such people.
AGNES.
EBBSMITH.
I really can't stop to re-organize Society now. I am due at my chambers in half-an-hour.
AGNES.
EBBSMITH.
May I ask your reason?
AGNES.
Because I have to be at the meeting of the Anti-marriage Association.
EBBSMITH.
Can't you send an excuse?
AGNES.
EBBSMITH.
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