Characters:
NED MALLOY
JIMMY, his roommate
MAJOR ANDREWS
EDWARD MALLOY, Ned’s father
NORDSTRUM
SCENE: A small bedroom on the top story of a squalid rooming house occupying the three upper floors of a building on a side street near the downtown waterfront, New York City—the ground floor being a saloon of the lowest type of grog shop. On the left of the room, forward, a rickety chest of drawers. Farther back, a window looking out on a fire escape. To the rear of the window, a washstand with bowl and pitcher, and then another window. A pile of books, stacked up against the wall, lies on the floor in the left corner. In the rear, left, a door opening on the hallway. To the right of door, a cot with a thin straw mattress, dirty blanket, and a lumpy pillow without a case placed at the end nearest the door. Against the right wall, another cot with the same meager equipment. The pillow of this cot is set at the end toward the rear. Two chairs are in the room—one left center, the other by the head of the cot on the right. On the latter are placed a small lighted lamp with a smudgy chimney, a package of cheap tobacco, matches, cigarette papers, etc.
The room is filthy. The wall and low ceiling, white-washed in some remote past, are spotted with the greasy imprints of groping hands and fingers. The plaster has scaled off in places showing the lathes beneath. The floor is carpeted with an accumulation of old newspapers, cigarette butts, ashes, burnt matches, etc.
It is just after dark of a miserable foggy day in the middle of March some years ago. The windows, stained by the sediment of old rains, glimmer grayly with a fresh layer of moisture.
_______
At the rise of the curtain Jimmy is discovered lying on the cot at the right reading a newspaper by the light of the lamp on the chair. It is cold in the room, so although he is fully dressed, he has the blanket drawn up well over his shoulders. After a moment he throws this off with a grunt of annoyance at having to disturb himself, puts his newspaper aside and swings his feet to the floor. Sitting on the side of the cot, he fills his corncob pipe and lights it, shivering in the chill air. He is an undersized stout little man of forty dressed in a worn and shiny black suit. His face is that of a fat but anemic baby—round, flabby-cheeked, pasty-complected, loose-lipped. His eyes of a faded blue stare mildly from their wrinkled pouches. His untrimmed hair, thin and graying, sticks limply to his skull. There is an air about him of a meticulous neatness gone to seed. His high wing collar is soiled, the white shirtfront beneath the cheap bow tie is crumpled and grimy. He speaks with a careful precision but the tone of the voice itself is vague. His pudgy little hands tremble as he lights his pipe.
Steps are heard from the hallway stairs and Jimmy turns his face expectantly. The door in the rear is opened and Ned Malloy enters. He is a tall slender young fellow of twenty-four dressed in a shabby brown raincoat over a frayed, gray sack suit. His face is oval, lean, the cheekbones prominent, lines of sleeplessness and dissipation deep about the eyes and mouth. His mouth is wide, the lips twisted by a bitter, self-mocking irony. His eyes are large and blue, with the peculiar possessed expression of the inveterate dreamer. His forehead, under a thick mass of black hair, is broad and wide; but his chin reveals weakness, indecision. The upper section of his face seems at war with the lower, giving the whole an appearance of conflict, of inner disharmony. Just now this is intensified, for he is evidently in an abnormal state of strain.
_______
JIMMY (suddenly brightening up and beaming with friendliness as he sees his roommate): Hello, Ned.
NED (putting his black slouch hat on the washstand and throwing his raincoat in a heap on the floor—shortly): Hello, Jimmy.
JIMMY (contentedly puffing at his pipe, ready to engage in endless conversation): It’s a rotten night out, isn’t it? I thought for a while of going over to Brooklyn—you know, to see that party I was telling you about. I’d catch him in at night, I think, and I’m sure I could make a touch on him for a ten spot—(hopefully) maybe a twenty. We used to be pals in the old days—years ago—when I was on easy street and he wasn’t. I’ve helped him many a time and never reminded him of it.
NED (with sudden savagery): Then it’s hopeless, you fool, don’t you see, damn it!
JIMMY (taken aback): Eh?
NED: If you really helped him that other time, I mean. You won’t get a nickel from him. Why, you poor nut, he’ll only take delight in seeing you down and out—and helping to keep you there. The best you can hope for will be a snivelling moral lecture on the evils of drink—and his advice to mend your ways, which he’ll hope you won’t take.
JIMMY (in a hurt tone): Oh, I don’t know. People aren’t all as bad as you’d like to make out.
NED (caustically): Aren’t they? Well, I haven’t seen them all. (He has the air of being excited by a false interest in this conversation as if he were trying to distract his thoughts.)
JIMMY: Anyway, I’m glad I didn’t go. I waited around in the bar downstairs to see if it wouldn’t clear. Tom Henderson was in. He blew me to a couple of whiskies.
NED: Hmm! I was wondering where your optimism came from.
JIMMY: But the beastly drizzle kept right on. It hadn’t let up when you came in, had it?
NED: No. Muck under foot and muck overhead—and in between. God’s giving us the naked truth today.
JIMMY (a bit shocked): You shouldn’t say that. (Then in a consoling tone) You’ve got the blue devils today, haven’t you?
NED: I haven’t had two whiskies.
JIMMY: Henderson slipped me a dollar when he was going. We can go downstairs and —
NED (gruffly): No. (Then more kindly) Thanks just the same.
JIMMY (with a grin): You must be feeling queer. Later, then?
NED (with a grim smile): Later? Supposing there wasn’t any—
JIMMY: You mean I’ll spend it before? No, Ned, I promise.
NED: Don’t be a fool. I wasn’t talking of that. I was speaking of—later.
JIMMY: You have got the blues all right. I don’t blame you. It’s this devilish weather. It’s enough to— Well, cheer up! It’s the middle of March now. Spring will soon be here.
NED (sardonically): That’ll be a blessing!
JIMMY (taking this at its face value): Yes, won’t it? Do you know, Ned, spring is my favorite season of the year.
NED (suddenly): How long have you been living here?
JIMMY: Six years, more or less. Why?
NED: I should think all the seasons would be alike in this rotten dump.
JIMMY (a bit huffily): Come now, Ned, this place ain’t so bad. Where else could we get a room on such long credit as Old John allows us?
NED: Yes, I suppose I ought to be grateful that, thanks to knowing you, I had his place to land in when the Old Man kicked me from the family fireside. Well, I was grateful then; but that was six months ago. (Excitedly) Anyway, I’m leaving it now.
JIMMY (astonished): You’re leaving? For good?
NED (with a harsh laugh): You’re damn right—for good!
JIMMY: Are you going home? Has your father—
NED: Welcomed me back to his bosom? No.
JIMMY: Then where are you going?
NED: If I knew that—(he pauses—then adds quietly) I’d be a wise guy indeed. (Then excitedly) But I’m talking rot. What was it you were holding forth about? (Sardonically) Oh yes—the beautiful spring!
JIMMY (defensively): Well, it is beautiful. Of course, you don’t get much chance to see it here in the city, but still I walk down to Battery Park every morning as soon as it gets warm enough.
NED (sombrely): It wasn’t very beautiful down there today—a miserable, soaking strip of mud, the trees dead, and the bay as filthy as an overgrown sewer.
JIMMY (surprised): You were down there today?
NED: For six hours—till it got dark.
JIMMY: But what were you doing—
NED: Sitting on a bench—with the rest of the flotsam.
JIMMY: In the rain? Why, you must be soaked! You’ll catch a cold sure.
NED: What’s the difference? (Irritably) Oh shut up, you old woman! You’re worse than a wet nurse. Pass me the tobacco, will you? I’ll roll a cigarette.
JIMMY (passing him the tobacco—in puzzled tones): You chose a funny time to loaf on the Battery, I must say.
NED: No other place. I wanted to be alone—and think. (He bends his head, appearing engrossed in rolling the cigarette. Jimmy looks at him uneasily.)
JIMMY (as if he wanted to change the subject): Well, you couldn’t get a favorable impression of it down there today. It’s different later. In the middle of spring—-
NED: Oh, to hell with spring! What significance can spring have to you—or to me—or any of the others in this hole?
JIMMY (a lump in his throat): Spring means something to me that you can’t very well understand, Ned. There have been springs in my life—in better days—when—
NED (exasperated—throwing away the lighted match with which he has not yet lit his cigarette): Stop! Stop right there, Jimmy! (He loses control over himself and rages hysterically at the astounded and frightened Jimmy.) I’ll be damned if I’ll stand for listening to the story again! No! Oh, I know you too well! I can see it coming, that story you’ve told me a thousand times. You always start in that way. But you’re not drunk now and you’ve no excuse for telling it; and I’m not drunk and so I won’t endure listening to it! You’re worse than Major Andrews downstairs who insists on showing me the scar on his leg when he’s on his pension drunk every month. I suppose you think yours is a wound, too, you sentimental rabbit! Of all the abject illusions! Listen to me! I’ll tell you the truth for once in your life. By your own story, a thousand times retold, you prove that that wife who ran away from you seven years ago was a worthless nonentity—and guilty in the bargain!
JIMMY (in a horrified gasp): Ned!
NED: And yet you hug her memory to your breast like a dried rose! Why, you ought to be thanking God you got rid of her! You weren’t happy then, you know it. But you are now. Yes, you are—in spite of everything. You’re secure—home at last—because this place is bedrock. After this there’s nothing—but the Morgue. Only you feel it’s morally wrong for you to live happy on this dunghill. You want an excuse— Bah! The Major is the same. He’s here, he laments, because his daughter abandoned him in his old age—that same religious crank of a daughter who, by his own story wouldn’t let him drink and made him go to church twice every Sunday. And now he’s happy as a king in this sink where no one gives a damn what he does. (Then suddenly sinking back on his cot—wearily) Hell! What’s the use of talking?
JIMMY (his lips quivering): You—you’re not so good yourself, when it comes to that.
NED: I? I’m no good and I know it. I make no excuses. I’m here because I belong here, but I’m not happy about it. Besides, what is the meaning of that word “good”? To be what you are and face it—that’s good. Come, confess it. Our only “bad” is lack of money to stay drunk on, isn’t it? (With a sudden wild laugh) Here I am arguing like an imbecile! Blessed last moments!
JIMMY (rising to his feet—with dignity): You’re very insulting. For old friendship’s sake—I prefer to forget your words. They were not those of a gentleman—or a friend—I never thought you— (He breaks down like a child.)
NED (jumping up and putting his hand on Jimmy’s shoulder—contritely): Forgive me, Jimmy. I’m all unstrung. I apologize. It was all nonsense, what I said. Forget it. I didn’t mean to hurt you, honestly, Jimmy.
JIMMY (recovers himself immediately and beams at his friend affectionately): It’s all right, Ned. Only your damned tongue—
NED (remorsefully): Forget it.
JIMMY (filling his pipe): Oh, it’s all forgotten. (Ned lights his cigarette and smokes in a gloomy, nervous abstraction. Jimmy lights his pipe and looks at his friend curiously. Finally he ventures:) You haven’t been acting like your old self, Ned.
NED: How could I? He’s dead—most of him—and the rest—
JIMMY: You don’t look well. Are you sick?
NED (frowning): No. I didn’t sleep much last night.
JIMMY (with alarmed solicitude): You didn’t come back here. You don’t mean to say you were walking the streets all night?
NED: No. (With a shudder of disgust) Oh, I found a warm bed—quicklime!
JIMMY (startled): Eh? (Ned doesn’t seem to hear him but stares across the room, the expression of strained tension on his face seeming to grow momentarily more intense. Jimmy clears his throat timorously.) Did you go to see—your father?
NED: No.
JIMMY: He refused to talk to you?
NED: No. I didn’t try. It stuck in my craw at the last moment. I’ve held out ever since our row and I made up my mind I’d not give him the satisfaction.
JIMMY: But—now that you’ve chucked that job you’ve got to do something.
NED (with sombre emphasis): I’m going to—do something. (Jimmy squirms uneasily.)
JIMMY (after a pause—hesitatingly): Nordstrum—the big Swede, you know, that comes in from the Market—I was talking to him last night. He says he’s going out West—Minnesota—just as soon as it gets warmer. He won’t have any money. He’s going to beat his way and foot it. Some relative has a farm out there. The Swede is sick of the city, he says. He wants to get where there’s fresh air.
NED (gloomily): He won’t find it. There’s no fresh air in this world.
JIMMY: Why don’t you go with him? He’d take you along. He likes you, he told me so. And it would be a wonderful trip—in the spring.
NED: Oh, damn your spring! But I’m thinking myself of taking—a long trip.
JIMMY (twists uneasily on the cot—uncertainly): It would be just the thing for you.
NED: Just!
JIMMY: Not that I’m anxious to have you go, you know, but—
NED: No. You will be sorry, won’t you? Yes, you’re one of the few. (Suddenly) Do you know where I went yesterday?
JIMMY: No.
NED: To the lawyer’s.
JIMMY (opening his eyes): Ah—you mean your wife’s lawyer?
NED: Yes. I told you, didn’t I, he’d written me a couple of times to come and see him—and arrange matters. I got half-shot yesterday morning in preparation for a stormy interview with the Old Man, but after I got that way I felt too independent to compromise with him. I wanted adventure—so I went to call on her lawyer.
JIMMY (curiously): Well, what did he say?
NED: Tried first to be kind and fatherly—good advice—said my fair frau was willing to forgive and forget if I would promise to behave and settle down. It didn’t take. I told him she might be willing but I was not. I wouldn’t forgive or forget the fact that I despise her.
JIMMY: Ned!
NED (exasperated): Now, Jimmy, for Christ’s sake, if you want to hear this—and I do want to tell you so that things will be understood by someone afterwards—it’s choking me!—then you’ve got to can your sentimental drivel. Save it for your own sorrow. (Fiercely) I won’t put up with it, do you hear?
JIMMY (hastily): Yes. (Then sorrowfully) I’ve always hoped—you’d go back to her finally.
NED (angrily): Jimmy! You’re an ass!
JIMMY (pathetically): But didn’t you—don’t you care for her at all?
NED (with a hopeless groan): Oh, my God! (Then vehemently) Not a damn! Not a single, solitary, infinitesimal tinker’s damn! I never did! Body—that was what I wanted in her and she in me. And I married her for an obsolete reason—a gentleman’s reason, you’d call it—and because a perverse devil whispered in my ear that marriage was one of those few things I hadn’t done. That’s all it was, so help me—a silly gesture of honor and a stunt!
JIMMY (agitatedly): I can’t believe it, Ned.
NED: It’s a fact, nevertheless. So don’t be sentimental. Leave that to her.
JIMMY (miserably): Then she is actually going to get a divorce?
NED: Of course. She’s rich. She’ll be married again within a year. Her pinhead won’t ever retain a memory of what happened two years ago. (With irritable excitement) Damn your questions! They set me off the track. All that is immaterial—too futile to discuss. It’s not what I want to tell, not what has moved me—to desire a long trip. (More and more excitedly) When we got down to cases the lawyer quit his fooling and gave his advice as to—(he shudders) the evidence. You know the law in New York. There’s only one ground that goes.
JIMMY: Yes—adultery.
NED: So we arranged a time and place.
JIMMY: But that’s collusion, isn’t it?
NED: Only if it’s found out. It was arranged that I should go, with witnesses, to a certain—house of ill fame, as the newspapers call them. The lawyer even offered to foot the bill in case I was broke; but I still had enough money left and I waved his offer magnificently aside—my last flair of honor, Jimmy! (He pauses for a moment—then bursts out:) That was where I spent the night—the warm bed I spoke of, Jimmy.
JIMMY (inclined to grin): And the quicklime?
NED: Searing to the brain! (Getting up and pacing back and forth—with growing intensity) Now it comes, Jimmy—what I wanted to tell: I don’t remember much about getting there—or my choosing the corespondent. We arrived in the small hours and I was very drunk. I must have fallen asleep—almost immediately. When I awoke the room was strange to me. It wasn’t dawn, it was midday, but it appeared like dawn, with faint streaks of light shedding from the edges of the green shades and the whole room is a sort of dead half-darkness with a close smell of powder and perfume—and Lysol. Gradually I remembered, lying there without moving, the night before. I felt suddenly stone cold sober and I grew conscious of soft breathing, of the warmth of that other body. I was afraid to look. Why? The whole thing was no new experience—but I was afraid! Then I forced myself to turn—(with a shudder) She was pretty, but she looked—there were all the weak sins of the world in her face—she looked like a painted clown with the black on her eyes and the greasy rouge on her lips—like a clown, you understand, a pitiable clown—and yet loathsome—oh, unutterably! And then, if she was that—what was I? And all of a sudden she turned over on her back and began to snore—more gross than a pig! And it seemed to me that suddenly everything I had ever done, my whole life—all life—had become too rotten! My head had been pushed under, I was drowning and the thick slime of loathing poured down my throat—strangling me! (He swallows convulsively.) I jumped up and got away without waking her. (He sinks on the cot limply, his head in his hands.) That’s all.
JIMMY (after a pause—now knowing what to say): Hmm— I think I understand. I’ve had the same experience.
NED (fiercely): Oh no, not the same! You’re here now, aren’t you? You wouldn’t be if—I tell you this was frightful—the end of everything—the last straw! (Frenziedly) Don’t you see what I mean, you fool? How can I go on, eh? No! It’s over! I’m done! I’m through!—when all beauty is gone out of the world!
JIMMY (after a pause—philosophically): Well, you’ll get over it. You mustn’t take it so seriously, Ned. (Insinuatingly) I’ve still got that dollar. Come on down and have a drink and forget it. . .
NED: No! (Furiously) You don’t understand. Go on! Get out of here! I want to be alone!
JIMMY: But don’t you want something to eat? You’d better.
NED: No! Leave me alone, will you? (After stopping uncertainly for a moment, staring uneasily at Ned, Jimmy goes out. As soon as he is gone Ned comes over to the lamp. He takes several pillboxes from his pockets and empties their contents on the chair—a small heap of white tablets. He picks up the pitcher and pours out a glass of water. He puts the tablets in the palm of his hand and, shaking off a momentary hesitation with a frowning jerk of his head, swallows them and washes them down with the water. He mutters with a grim smile:) Well, that’s over. (Turns down the lamp and lies down on his cot, closing his eyes with a deep sigh, pulling the blanket up over his shoulders)
The curtain is lowered to denote the passage of twenty-four hours.
__
When it rises again the scene is unchanged. By the dim light of the lamp, its wick turned low, the face of Ned Malloy can be seen. He is still lying on the cot fast asleep, the blanket pulled up over his shoulders. His face has a singularly peaceful and calm expression, the strained look of tension is gone. Steps are heard from the hall outside and men’s voices raised in dispute. There is a warning S-h-h from one of them as the door is opened slowly and Jimmy and Major Andrews come into the room. They are both quite drunk. Jimmy’s face beams like a sentimental moon on a popular song cover. The Major is a tall, spare man of a ramrod bearing, dressed in clothes of the English style which have evidently seen long wear and assiduous brushing. With his small bright eyes like a bird’s, his bony sharp face, red complexion, stiff white hair and military mustache, and self-important strutting air, the Major irresistibly recalls to mind a white leghorn cockerel on the brink of his first crow. They move carefully to the cotside and stand with bowed heads, side by side, as if paying the last honors to a corpse.
JIMMY (in a thick whisper—on the verge of tears): Alive—thank God!
MAJOR (shaking his head—sentimentally): Poor young chap! To think—he owes his life to you—yes, Jimmy boy, to you.
JIMMY (generously): And to you, too, Major—you, too! You helped me walk him around. (With a gulp) God bless you, old friend!
MAJOR (with dignity): We’ll say no more. I love the poor young chap. (Sentimentally) Ah, the fair sex—wives, sweethearts and daughters—what devilish tricks they play us, Jimmy boy. (Then briskly) Shall we wake him up now? When is his father coming for him?
JIMMY: At eight. It’s nearly that now. (As the Major grabs Ned by the shoulder) Don’t tell him his father’s coming, Major. Let’s leave it a surprise. Poor Ned! How happy he’ll be.
MAJOR (shakes Ned vigorously): Wake up! My dear young chap! Wake up, that’s a good lad!
JIMMY (shouting): Ned! Wake up!
NED (blinking his eyes open—sleepily): What the hell—? (He suddenly straightens up in bed with startled eyes as recollection dawns on him.)
JIMMY (with a maudlin giggle): Oh, you’re alive, all right.
NED (with a savage gesture): Shut up! I want to think. (He remains in deep thought for a moment, staring perplexedly around the room—then mutters in a tone of deep self-disgust:) Missed fire, by God!
MAJOR (importantly): A damned narrow squeak of it, my dear young chap. You owe your life to our friend Jimmy, here.
JIMMY (maudlinly): No, you too, Major! You too!
NED (disgustedly): You fools! I might have known it. (To Jimmy impatiently) What happened? Tell me, you idiot!
JIMMY: Well, when I went downstairs, when you drove me out, I was worried about you, worried to death—we’re chums, aren’t we—chums! (He insists on shaking Ned’s hand.)
NED (restraining his anger): Yes, yes, of course. Then what?
JIMMY (with a cunning wink): You’d been dropping hints—dark, dark hints—you weren’t yourself, you know—and I had my suspicions—and was worried, worried to death about you.
MAJOR: So he came back upstairs—and there you were, old chap!
JIMMY: Stiff and stark—like a corpse.
MAJOR: So he ran for a doctor—
JIMMY: And called the Major—
MAJOR: And the doctor came, and you were frightfully ill, poor chap. You’d taken too much of an overdose, you know. And he worked on you—
JIMMY: With a stomach pump—
MAJOR: And we walked you about, pummelling you—you’ll be sore today, I fancy.
JIMMY: You were like a log—
MAJOR: But we had to keep you moving—
JIMMY: Then the doctor came again and said it would be all right to let you sleep off the rest of it—
MAJOR: You’ve been dead to the world for twenty-four hours, poor chap. And there you are!
NED (slowly): Yes, here I am. And now—what? (Turning to Jimmy suddenly) Of course, you phoned to my father and told him all about it, I’ll bet!
JIMMY (with pride): I did better.
NED (furiously): Damn!
JIMMY (alarmed): But, Ned, I had to—the doctor and everything. We had no money. After I knew you were all right I went to see him. I had a difficult time—breaking the news. Your poor father—he loves you, Ned!
NED: Shut up! How much did he give you?
JIMMY: He wanted you taken to the best hospital but I told him the doctor said it wasn’t necessary.
NED: How much did he give you?
JIMMY: Fifty dollars. (He chuckles cunningly.)
NED (astonished): What ho! He must have been stricken to the heart. So that’s how you raised the wind? I was wondering where the price of your jags came from.
MAJOR (walking about—huffily): Tut-tut! Nothing of the sort! (There is the sound of steps from the stairs outside. Jimmy nudges the Major with his elbow.)
JIMMY (in a loud whisper): It must be him coming, Major.
MAJOR (hurriedly): Ahem—we’ll leave you now, old chap—for a moment—ahem. (They both sidle out the door.)
NED (excitedly): What’s this? What are you up to now, damn you! (He recognizes his father’s voice talking to them outside the door—furiously.) The old man! Hell! (His father enters the room. Malloy is a tall, portly, well-dressed, important-looking man of fifty-five or so with the serene, self-complacent countenance of one who has achieved success in his chosen line—by his own unaided endeavors, he believes. His manner is somewhat stern and dictatorial; he expects his word to be accepted as the last as a matter of course. Just now he is as emotionally moved as it is possible for him to be. In appearance he bears but little resemblance to his son.)
MALLOY (coming to the cotside): Ned! (He extends his hand which Ned takes after a second’s indecision.) How are you, boy?
NED (awkwardly): Oh, all right, I guess. (There is a pause.)
MALLOY (clearing his throat—condescendingly): We’ll let bygones be bygones, my boy. Though how you could think of taking a step which amounts to a crime—without consideration for your family—if your poor mother was alive—
NED (impatiently): If you came to talk about that, it’s no use.
MALLOY (flushing angrily but restraining himself): No, I did not. The past is past. We’ll bury it. But you must see the necessity of leaving this filthy dive as soon as possible. I’ve come in the car to bring you home.
NED (uneasily): I feel very weak. I think I’d better stay in bed here tonight.
MALLOY (frowning): Of course, if you don’t feel up to it. I’ll send the car for you tomorrow morning, then?
NED (relieved): All right.
MALLOY (after a pause): Margaret is at home staying with me.
NED (starting): Ha!
MALLOY: I thought it my duty to phone and let her know what had happened. She was out of her mind with grief, Ned. If she had ever dreamed the divorce proceedings would have hit you so hard—
NED: Aha! So that’s what she thinks! The devil!
MALLOY: She thought you didn’t care. She did everything in her power to bring you to your senses before taking the decisive step—offered to forgive and forget—and she has forgiven you, Ned, because she loves you like a true woman. She has withdrawn the divorce proceedings, I needn’t add.
NED (aghast): And she’s sitting at our house—now—for me?
MALLOY: Yes, to welcome you home. She even desired to come to you at once but I dissuaded her. I knew you wouldn’t want her to see you here.
NED (after a pause): Well, I suppose she and I have got to have it out face to face finally.
MALLOY (hastily): Not at once. Let matters have time to adjust themselves between you. You need a good rest, my boy, to regain equilibrium.
NED (eagerly): Yes. Rest is what I want.
MALLOY: We suggest, Margaret and I—your sisters , too, think it advisable—that you go to some rest cure institution for a time and build up in body and mind.
NED: Wait a moment. (He remains in deep thought for a while—then seems to make a sudden decision and grins sardonically.) Well, I’m agreeable. For a month, say. It’ll be spring then. As long as it’s a place where I can be alone—and think.
MALLOY: I’m glad to find you in such a sensible frame of mind. I was afraid—your action, you know, pointed to derangement. But I’ve heard of a place in the country—quite select—strict secrecy—only a very few patients allowed.
NED (his eyes now twinkling with a tickled humor): That’s fine!
MALLOY (pleased): That’s settled, then. Good boy! And afterwards—we’ll see. Your old position in my office is always open to you, of course.
NED (frowning): Let’s talk of that—afterwards.
MALLOY: Very well. I won’t disturb you any longer. You need rest and sleep. Till tomorrow, Ned.
NED: Goodbye for the present. (They shake hands. Malloy goes out. Ned, waiting until he is out of earshot, bursts into a fit of hearty, mocking laughter.) God, this is a funny world! And I wanted to die! (The door is opened and the Major enters, drunker than ever. He comes and stands stiffly swaying by the cotside.)
MAJOR (as if he were making a report of military operations): Jimmy is foraging below to—hic—purchase a quart. We will drink to your long life, my boy, now that you—hic—are happily reunited to your family. My dear chap, I’m so glad. Your father appears an—hic—estimable gentleman. (Dolorously) Ah, it’s a thankless task to bring children into the world! What is it the Great Bard—hic—says? “How sharper than a serpent’s—hic—tooth to have a thankless child.” My dear lad, I speak from sad experience. My daughter whom I nourished and cherished—hic—brought my gray hairs to what you see me now. Have I ever told you—?
NED (quickly with a grin of malice): Yes, you have. How she wouldn’t let you get drunk and made you go to church twice every Sunday until you had to run away from her.
MAJOR (greatly piqued, stalks stiffly about the room) Nothing of the—hic—sort. It was she who heartlessly abandoned me. With stern reproof I have not yet—hic—expressed my disapproval at your attempt at self-destruction. It was funk, sir, pure funk! I know from experience. I’ve seen my own men—hic—give way to it before a battle. Why the very day—in the Zulu war, it was, no in the Soudan—when I got this wound in the leg from a spear—a very devil—hic—of a gash—an awful weapon, my lad. I’ll bear the marks of it till the day I die. Did I ever—hic—show you? (He starts to roll up his trousers.)
NED (with solemn seriousness): Since the last time, Major, you never have. (But the Major is interrupted by the stumbling of footsteps on the stairs and Jimmy’s voice whining out: “Oh you take the high road and I’ll take the low road.”)
MAJOR (going hurriedly to the door, his pants on one leg half rolled up to the knee): By Jove, you know, he’ll—hic—drop the bottle. (But Jimmy enters with it successfully clutched in one hand and four whiskey glasses in the other, and staggers to a seat on the edge of his cot. He is followed by Nordstrum, a tall, husky, blond Swede dressed in flannel shirt and working overalls.)
NED (throwing off the blanket and jumping up. He shakes the Swede’s hand): Hello, Nordy. I was just thinking about you. Will you let me go along with you when you start for the West?
NORDSTRUM (heartily): Sure, I like like haal for gat you along, Ned.
NED: It’s a go, then. You start toward the end of April, don’t you?
NORDSTRUM: Yes.
NED: I’ll be ready by then. I need a month’s rest to get in physical shape for it. Get busy there, Jimmy. Give us a drink. (Jimmy hands out the glasses and the bottle and they all pour out a drink.)
MAJOR (solemnly): Long life to you—hic—my dear young chap.
JIMMY: And may you—turn over—new leaf. (They are about to drink.)
NED: Stop! New leaf be damned. It’s a new book without a leaf of the old left in it. The Past is finally cremated. I feel reborn, I tell you! I’ve had a bath! I’ve been to confession! My sins are forgiven me! God judges by our intentions, they say, and my intentions last night were of the best. He evidently wants to retain my services here below—for what I don’t know yet but I’m going to find out—and I feel of use already! So here’s looking forward to the new life, reform or no reform, as long as it’s new. To spring—and fresh air—and Minnesota. Skoal, Nordy.
NORDSTRUM (with a grin): Skoal! (They all drink.)
JIMMY (blubberingly): Spring—did you say, Ned? If you had been through—all I have—in better years—in spring—
NED (with grinning exasperation): Woof! He’s started!
NORDSTRUM (with a roar of laughter): Py yimminy, he tal dat story twenty time to me tonight!
NED: Drown him out, Nordy! (He commences to sing raucously: “Come on and hear! Come on and hear! Alexander’s ragtime band!”)
NORDSTRUM (singing with a deep bellow at the same time): “Oh you bootiful doll, you great big bootiful doll!”
MAJOR (his hands over his ears, trying to make himself heard in protest): My dear young chaps! My dear young chaps! (Jimmy weeps brokenheartedly at the heartlessness of his fellow men as
The curtain falls.) ♦
