BADLY SYNGED.
The scene is the morning-room of the Smith-Hybrows' South London residence. It is the day following the final performance of the Smith-Hybrows' strenuous season of J.M. Synge drama, undertaken with the laudable intention of familiarising the suburb with the real Irish temperament and the works of the dramatist in question.
Mrs. Smith-Hybrow is seated at the breakfast-table, her head buried behind the coffee urn. She is opening her letters and "keening" softly as she rocks in her chair.
Mrs. Smith-Hybrow (scanning a letter). Will I be helping them with the sale of work? It's little enough the like of me will be doing for them the way I was treated at the last Bazaar, when Mrs. McGupperty and Mrs. Glyn-Jones were after destroying me with the cutting of the sandwiches. And was I not there for three days, from the rising of the blessed sun to the shining of the blessed stars, cutting and cutting, and never a soul to bear witness to the destroying labour of it, and the two legs of me like to give way with the great weariness (keens)? I'll have no call this year to be giving in to their prayers and beseechings, and I won't care the way the Curate will be after trying to come round me, with his eyes looking at me the way the moon kisses the drops of dew on the hedgerows when the road is white.
[Opens another letter, keening the while in a slightly higher key. Enter Gertrude Smith-Hybrow. She crosses to the window and stares out.
Gertrude. There are black clouds in the sky, and the wind is breaking in the west and making a great stir with the trees, and they are hitting one on the other. And there is rain falling, falling from the clouds, and the roads be wet.
Mrs. S.-H. It is your mackintosh you will be wanting when you are after going to the Stores.
Gertrude (coming to the table and speaking with dull resentment). And why should I be going to the Stores the way I have enough to do with a meeting of the League for Brighter Homes and a luncheon of the Cubist Encouragement Society? Isn't it a queer hard thing that Dora cannot be going to the Stores, and her with time enough on her hands surely?
[Sits in her place and begins keening. While she has been speaking Dora has entered hurriedly, buttoning her jumper.
Dora (vigorously). And is it you, Gertrude Smith-Hybrow, that will be talking about me having time on my hands? May the saints forgive you for the hard words, and me having to cycle this blessed day to Mrs. Montgomery's lecture on the Dadaist Dramatists, and the méringues and the American creams to be made for to-night's Tchekoff Conversazione. Is it not enough for a girl to be destroyed with the play-acting, and the wind like to be in my face the whole way and the rain falling, falling?
[Sits in her place and keens.
Mrs. S.-H. (after an interval of keening). Is it your father that will be missing his train this morning, Dora Smith-Hybrow?
Dora (rousing herself and selecting an egg). It is my father that will be missing his train entirely, and it is his son that would this minute be sleeping the blessed daylight away had I not let fall upon him a sponge that I had picked out of the cold, cold water.
Gertrude. It is a flapper you are, Dora Smith-Hybrow.
Dora. It is a flapper you will never be again, Gertrude Smith-Hybrow, though you be after doing your queer best to look like one.
Mrs. S.-H. Whisht! Is it the time for loose talk, with the wind rising, rising, and the rain falling, falling, and the price of butter up another threepence this blessed morning?
[They all three recommence keening. Enter Mr. Smith-Hybrow followed by Cyril.
Mr. S.-H. (staunching a gash in his chin). Is it not a hard thing for a man to be late for his breakfast and the rain falling, falling, and the wind rising, rising. It's destroyed I am with the loss of blood and no food in my stomach would keep the life in a flea.
[Sits in his place and opens his letters savagely. Cyril, a cadaverous youth, stares gloomily into the depths of the marmalade.
Cyril (dreamily). There's gold and gold and gold—caverns of gold. And there's a woman with hair of gold and eyes would pick the locks of a man's soul, and long shining hands like pale seaweed. Is it not a terrible thing that a man would have to go to the City when there is a woman with gold hair waiting for him in the marmalade pot—waiting to draw him down into the cold, cold water?
Dora. Is it another spongeful you are wanting, Cyril Smith-Hybrow, and myself destroyed entirely waiting for the marmalade?
[Cyril blushes, passes the marmalade, sits down languidly and selects an egg. Mrs. S.-H. pours out the coffee and resumes her keening.
Mr. S.-H. (glaring at her). Is it not a nice thing for the wife of a respectable City stockbroker to sit at the breakfast-table making a noise like that of a cow that is waiting to be milked?
Mrs. S.-H. (hurt). It is keening I am.
Gertrude (passing him "The Morning Post"). Is it not enough that the price of butter is up another threepence this blessed day, and the wind rising, rising, and the rain falling, falling?
Mr. S.-H. It is destroyed we shall all be entirely.
Cyril (gazing into the depths of his egg). There was a strange queer dream I was after having the night that has gone. It was on the rocks I was....
Mr. S.-H. (glaring at the market reports). It is on the rocks we shall all be.
Cyril. ... on the rocks I was by the sea-shore ...
Dora (slightly hysterically). With the wind rising, rising?
Cyril (nodding). ... and the rain falling, falling. And a woman of the chorus drove up in a taxi, and the man that had the driving of it was eating an orange. The woman came and sat by the side of me, and the peroxide in her hair made it gleam like the pale gold coins that were in the banks before the Great War (more dreamily). Never a word said she when I hung a chain of cold, cold sausages about her neck, but her eyes were shining, shining, and into my hands she put a tin of corned beef. And it is destroyed I was with the love of her, and would have kissed her lips but I saw the park-keeper coming, coming out of the sea for tickets, and I fled from the strange queer terror of it, and found myself by a lamp-post in Hackney Wick with the wind rising, rising, and the rain falling, falling.
[He stops. The others stare at him and at one another in piteous inquiry. The women begin keening. Mr. S.-H. seizes the remaining egg and cracks it viciously.
Mr. S.-H. (falling back in his chair). Damnation!
[The air is filled with a pungent matter-of-fact odour. Dora, holding her handkerchief to her nose, rushes valiantly at the offender and hurls it out of the window on to a flower-bed. The Synge spell is broken.
Mr. Punch begs to thank the seven hundred and forty-three correspondents who have so thoughtfully drawn his attention to the too familiar fact that "there's many a slip 'twixt the Cup and the Lipton."
