NANNY. Pooh! the time will come when you will be willing to give anything for a kiss.
W. G. Rot! You have no right to bring such charges against a fellow.
NANNY. A fellow! You horrid little boy.
W. G. Little boy! I ‘mas tall as you!
(Turns and measures back to back. He looks to see if she’s tiptoeing and pushes her down.)
NANNY. YOU call yourself W. G. because you think you are a great cricketer and I can bowl you myself.
W. G. You bowl me! Oh, that time — because my foot slipped. (Goes.)
VOICE. Milk! Ahoy!
MRS. GOLIGHTLY (speaking out at window). W. G. (counts stitches) 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28. W. G., do pull across for the milk!
W. G. I’ll go, but it’s an awful swot! (Gets into punt.)
NANNY. And W. G., you needn’t expect me to play in the cricket match on Saturday if you say I bowled you unfairly.
W. G. (alarmed). Don’t say you won’t play, Cousin Nanny. I say, I’m not angry with you for kissing me; I know girls can’t help it. And look here, read that letter I’ve been writing to Daly Major, and you’ll see how I crack up your leg hits.
(Exit W. G. in punt. He is heard whistling after out of sight, until nanny is on deck, nanny looks at letter, laughs and runs on deck.)
NANNY (leaning over railing). Listen, you people!
(BELL, ANDREW and MRS. GOLIGHTLY put their heads out.)
Do you want to hear W. G.’s candid opinion of you? It is in a letter to a school friend.
BELL. And very ungrammatical, I fear.
ANDREW. Yes, I don’t think you will have two B.A.s in your family, Mrs. Golightly.
MRS. GOLIGHTLY. One is enough. 15, 16, 17, 18, 19.
(Goes on knitting while BELL puts finishing touches to her hair.)
NANNY (reading). ‘Dear old boy, I take up the pen to tell you we are in a houseboat this month, and it is the mater’s houseboat, and she knits all day, like she does everywhere.’ BELL (scornfully). Like she does!
NANNY. ‘My sister Bell is also here and you will regret to hear she has had the cheek to take a B. A. of London, and I am ashamed of her knowing all about the Differential Calculus and Greek verbs, it not being womanly; but you were wrong in thinking she would wear blue spectacles.’
ANDREW. That’s one for you, Miss Golightly.
NANNY. ‘There is another girl on board, my cousin Nanny, and we are to have a cricket match next Saturday in the village, men versus women. Nanny is good at high leg ones but I can always bowl her with a daisy cutter.’ He can’t!
ANDREW. One for you, Miss O’Brien.
NANNY. Yes, and here is one for you. ‘There is a Scotch chap staying with us, called Andrew McPhail, and I’m rather glad he is here — I’m rather glad he is here, because he’s as bad a scholar as myself. He is an Edinburgh medical student, and is waiting to hear whether he passed his exam, to be a doctor, and he will hear by telegram on Saturday, but I don’t expect he’ll pass; and neither does Bell. She says he—’
BELL. Nanny!
NANNY. I’ll miss that. Hum — um — um! ‘McPhail is rather soft on my cous—’ — hum! (With emphasis)
‘McPhail is rather soft!’ Ah, Bell. Here is something about Mr. Upjohn. ‘Who do you think is staying at the inn? One of the greatest men of the day, namely Kit Upjohn who made 121 for Middlesex against Notts, and even then was only bowled off his pads.’ BELL. A poor kind of greatness!
NANNY. ‘But though Upjohn is such a swell he isn’t stuck up, and he treats Bell just like as if she was his equal. He comes to the houseboat every day, and lets her jaw away to him about choosing a profession, and sometimes the three of us go for a walk, and then he offers me a cane-handled bat if I can run the mile in six minutes.’ Oh, Bell!
BELL (indignantly). It isn’t true!
NANNY. What isn’t?
BELL. What you imply!
NANNY. What did I imply?
BELL. That I — that Mr. Upjohn — that we — oh! (Retires from window, NANNY beckons to ANDREW, who saunters into saloon up ladder to deck.) They all seem to think I’m in love with Mr. Upjohn, a man who laughs every time I speak of woman’s true position to him. I can’t love him. I won’t.
(Pulls down blind.)
(A crash is heard, MRS. GOLIGHTLY raises hands in horror. Exits.)
NANNY (to ANDREW on deck). And how have you slept, sir?
ANDREW. Badly. I dreamt I had been plucked in the exam.
NANNY. You have not got used to that dream yet?
(Instead of answering ANDREW becomes rigid; there is a horrified look in his face; he draws a diagram in the air with his fingers and mutters.)
Whatever is the matter?
ANDREW. I have just remembered — I believe — Oh, Miss O’Brien, I think I gave the wrong answer to question five. (Continues to glare and mutter.)
NANNY. What was it?
ANDREW. ‘Take a stomach; remove the—’
NANNY (putting fingers to her ears). Disgusting!
ANDREW (coming to). We all have them, Miss O’Brien.
NANNY. I suppose we have, but, sure, we needn’t let on! That’s the worst of being a doctor.
ANDREW. I’m not a doctor yet. Oh, to be one, to prescribe, to operate. To cut off legs! (Sits.)
NANNY (after looking over at BELL’S window). Mr. McPhail, did you ever propose to a lady?
ANDREW. No, but I want to — Nanny —
NANNY. Hush! If you were a lady and knew that a man was about to propose to you, and you meant to accept him, how should you — dress?
ANDREW. Dress?
NANNY. Or suppose you meant to refuse him, then how should you dress?
ANDREW. Really?
NANNY. Stupid! I am quite certain from Mr. Upjohn’s manner yesterday that he will propose to Bell to-day. Now if I know it, you may be sure she knows it, and even you must see that she is taking twice as long to dress this morning as usual. Does that mean that she is to accept or refuse him?
ANDREW. Accept obviously, because if she meant the other thing, she would not care how she looked.
NANNY. I think the reverse; if she was to say yes, it would not much matter how she looked, because he would be seeing her so often afterwards. But if it is to be no, she would naturally dress carefully.
ANDREW. Why?
NANNY. SO that he should have her at her prettiest to remember her by after he goes to Manitoba!
ANDREW. But Miss Golightly despises dress — she told me so herself.
NANNY. Pooh! I should like to see her wear a last year’s frock.
ANDREW. Miss O’Brien, did you dress carefully to-day?
NANNY. Awfully carefully! (Pause.)
ANDREW. You ‘re a bonny wee lassie!
NANNY. No compliments, but I see you are a Scotchman now, and I used to doubt