could afford to buy if we chose, and, at the same time, planning
out our lives in a spirit of the most rigid and exacting economy!
RUD. It's a most beautiful and touching picture of
connubial bliss in its highest and most rarefied development!
DUET—BARONESS and RUDOLPH.
BAR. As o'er our penny roll we sing,
It is not reprehensive
To think what joys our wealth would bring
Were we disposed to do the thing
Upon a scale extensive.
There's rich mock-turtle—thick and clear—
RUD. (confidentially). Perhaps we'll have it once a year!
BAR. (delighted). You are an open-handed dear!
RUD. Though, mind you, it's expensive.
BAR. No doubt it is expensive.
BOTH. How fleeting are the glutton's joys!
With fish and fowl he lightly toys,
RUD. And pays for such expensive tricks
Sometimes as much as two-and-six!
BAR. As two-and-six?
RUD. As two-and-six—
BOTH. Sometimes as much as two-and-six!
BAR. It gives him no advantage, mind—
For you and he have only dined,
And you remain when once it's down
A better man by half-a-crown.
RUD. By half-a-crown?
BAR. By half-a-crown.
BOTH. Yes, two-and-six is half-a-crown.
Then let us be modestly merry,
And rejoice with a derry down derry.
For to laugh and to sing
No extravagance bring—
It's a joy economical, very!
BAR. Although as you're of course aware
(I never tried to hide it)
I moisten my insipid fare
With water—which I can't abear—
RUD. Nor I—I can't abide it.
BAR. This pleasing fact our souls will cheer,
With fifty thousand pounds a year
We could indulge in table beer!
RUD. Get out!
BAR. We could—I've tried it!
RUD. Yes, yes, of course you've tried it!
BOTH. Oh, he who has an income clear
Of fifty thousand pounds a year—
BAR. Can purchase all his fancy loves
Conspicuous hats—
RUD. Two shilling gloves—
BAR. (doubtfully). Two-shilling gloves?
RUD. (positively). Two-shilling gloves—
BOTH. Yes, think of that, two-shilling gloves!
BAR. Cheap shoes and ties of gaudy hue,
And Waterbury watches, too—
And think that he could buy the lot
Were he a donkey—
RUD. Which he's not!
BAR. Oh no, he's not!
RUD. Oh no, he's not!
BOTH (dancing).
That kind of donkey he is not!
Then let us be modestly merry,
And rejoice with a derry down derry.
For to laugh and to sing
Is a rational thing-
It's a joy economical, very!
[Exit
BARONESS.
RUD. Oh, now for my detective's report. (Opens letter.)
What's this! Another conspiracy! A conspiracy to depose me!
And my private detective was so convulsed with laughter at the
notion of a conspirator selecting him for a confidant that he was
physically unable to arrest the malefactor! Why, it'll come
off! This comes of engaging a detective with a keen sense of the
ridiculous! For the future I'll employ none but Scotchmen. And
the plot is to explode to-morrow! My wedding day! Oh,
Caroline, Caroline! (Weeps.) This is perfectly frightful!
What's to be done? I don't know! I ought to keep cool and
think, but you can't think when your veins are full of hot
soda-water, and your brain's fizzing like a firework, and all
your faculties are jumbled in a perfect whirlpool of
tumblication! And I'm going to be ill! I know I am! I've been
living too low, and I'm going to be very ill indeed!
SONG—RUDOLPH.
When you find you're a broken-down critter,
Who is all of a trimmle and twitter,
With your palate unpleasantly bitter,
As if you'd just eaten a pill—
When your legs are as thin as dividers,
And you're plagued with unruly insiders,
And your spine is all creepy with spiders,
And you're highly gamboge in the gill—
When you've got a beehive in your head,
And a sewing machine in each ear,
And you feel that you've eaten your bed,
And you've got a bad headache down here—
When such facts are about,
And these symptoms you find
In your body or crown—
Well, you'd better look out,
You may make up your mind
You had better lie down!
When your lips are all smeary—like tallow,
And your tongue is decidedly yallow,
With a pint of warm oil in your swallow,
And a pound of tin-tacks in your chest—
When you're down in the mouth with the vapours,
And all over your Morris wall-papers
Black-beetles are cutting their capers,
And crawly things never at rest—
When you doubt if your head is your own,
And you jump when an open door slams—
Then you've got to a state which is known
To the medical world as "jim-jams"
If such symptoms you find
In your body or head,
They're not easy to quell—
You may make up your mind
You are better in bed,
For you're not at all well!
(Sinks exhausted and weeping at foot of well.)