So are all men naturally.
NANNY. Yes, what a pity that all nice men are so nasty.
BELL. Show me a man, be he African or English, and I will show you a born bully.
PENNY (aside). She is a-hitting at Mr. Upjohn.
JASPER. It’s just the same, all the world over, the men run after the women — and the women run after the men. Oh, yes they do, I’ve done it myself.
(Exit PENNY.)
W. G. I say, McPhail, wasn’t it clever of me to rig this up myself? I can do a lot of things on it. It is a way of getting into the punt, too. Look here, you hold this end, and I’ll show how it’s done.
(ANDREW rises, holds end and W. G. clings to ball.)
Mater, hi — all of you look!
(They turn round, look up W. G. is lowered to punt.
MRS. GOLIGHTLY utters cries of fear, and coming out on plank.)
That’s a handy way of getting into the punt, isn’t it? (Boards and returns to deck.)
MRS. GOLIGHTLY. I forbid you to do that again, you rash boy. You might have fallen into the river. (Goes back.)
JASPER. It is nothing.
W. G. Come up and let them see you do it, Colonel.
JASPER. Not just now, W. G., too comfortable where I am.
W. G. Well, don’t forget any of you that we start for the cricket match, men versus girls, in half an hour.
ANDREW. I won’t leave the houseboat till my telegram arrives.
W. G. You must play.
ANDREW. Do you think I have passed, W. G.?
W. G. No. (ANDREW looks through glass, W. G. tries to balance bat on his nose.)
MRS. GOLIGHTLY. Who was the soldier that said the most dangerous thing he ever did was to cross Piccadilly Circus?
BELL. That was nothing to Colonel Neil swimming the Congo with his hands tied.
JASPER. Yes, I did swim the Congo with my hands tied. A trifle!
BELL. Nor to his shooting the gorilla.
JASPER. Pooh! When you meet a gorilla, what can you do? There’s the gorilla, and there you are — and — and — and there it is.
NANNY. Nor to his march through the forest of the dwarfs.
JASPER. My duty. Oh, I shot an elephant once! Oh yes, I did! I met the elephant in a forest, and I had an air gun with me, and I shot it. You can’t shoot without a gun in Africa. You would have been surprised if you had seen the birds, the way they came down and pecked it. Hundreds of them!
BELL. What kind of birds?
JASPER. Oh, there were eagles and snipe — vultures, sparrows, canaries, turkeys and bull-rushes, the oof bird — they ate that elephant up and left nothing but the trunk.
NANNY. And what did you do with the trunk?
JASPER. Oh, I had it packed up. No, no, I had the trunk made into a portmanteau.
NANNY. Did you meet any lions?
JASPER. I wrestled with a lion and sent a graphic account to the papers.
BELL. And then you saved me!
JASPER. That was nothing.
MRS. GOLIGHTLY. Strange that your experiences of the dwarfs should be so like Mr. Stanley’s.
BELL. And that you shot the gorilla just as De Rougemont did.
JASPER. Yes, you see — there is only one way of doing these things. But, Mrs. Golightly, it sounds like boasting to be always talking of myself. Where have you been?
MRS. GOLIGHTLY (at window). Never further than the Continent. I knitted half a muffler going up the Rigi — or was it in Notre-Dame? Then I began a worsted waistcoat for W. G. in the Kremlin, added to it in Cologne Cathedral, the Colosseum, the Acropolis, and elsewhere, and finished it, I remember, in the Alhambra.
JASPER. The Alhambra?
BELL. Yes, I was with mother.
JASPER. YOU?
BELL. And I should like to live near it, so that I could go daily.
JASPER. What?
MRS. GOLIGHTLY. The Alhambra is in Spain, you know.
JASPER. Oh, I thought you meant — oh!
(ANDREW comes down ladder into saloon.)
NANNY. NO sign of Ben with the telegram, Mr. McPhail?
ANDREW. None.
(MCPHAIL goes into saloon and reads book. The cuckoo is heard once, JASPER goes on bank.)
BELL (following). You are feeling dizzy again, Colonel?
JASPER. Just a little.
W. G. Come up, Bell, and see me swiping.
(Cuckoo is heard three times, JASPER goes on plank and then into saloon.)
NANNY. Listen to that cuckoo.
MRS. GOLIGHTLY. Yes, we never heard it till you came to us, Colonel, and now we hear it a dozen times a day.
(Exit JASPER, retires to bedroom, BELL goes on deck.
ANDREW is watching bank in punt W. G. is on deck, MRS. GOLIGHTLY and NANNY at stern.)
MRS. GOLIGHTLY. 23, 24, 25, 26, 27. (Looks after JASPER.) How interesting a clever man is.
NANNY. Yes, and even if he isn’t clever.
(MRS. GOLIGHTLY knits. Cuckoo is heard again.)
JASPER (pulling up bedroom blind). Damn that cuckoo — it makes me nervous, I’ll get up early tomorrow and shoot it.
(He suspends little mirror at window and proceeds to brush his hair.)
W. G. Bell, I would rather take three wickets in an over than be Shakespeare and Homer and all these swells put together. I say, what’s the matter with you? You haven’t sneered at me for nearly a week — not since Upjohn went away.
BELL. Mr. Upjohn! I told you, W. G., that I dislike the very mention of his name — he has not even written! I dare say he has forgotten me already, W. G. I dare say!
BELL. W. G.
JASPER (leaning out). If I’m not Colonel Neil, I’m the next thing to it, for I’ve shampooed him, and I’m very like him, and that was what made me think of being him. It ‘s only for a week and I’m doing no harm, and I am enjoying myself.
W. G. You must have riled him by saying women are the equals of men, and all that rot!
BELL. It isn’t rot!
W. G. It is tommy-rot!
JASPER. I wish they wouldn’t ask so many questions about Africa, though. Good thing I read up the African books before I started on my honeymoon.
W. G. Don’t women’s brains weigh less than men’s?
BELL. Don’t sixpences weigh less than pennies?
JASPER. What I miss here is the hair oil.
W. G. How can you be a man’s equal when you can’t even find the pocket of your dress?
BELL. I can — usually.
JASPER.