HARVEY WESTERN HIS HONOUR JUDGE BANKET MARTIN WILLIAM MRS. WESTERN MRS. BANKET MISS FARREN SMITHERS
TIME—The present
Produced at the Liverpool Repertory Theatre on Feb. 26, 1912
THE BRACELET
The dining-room in an upper middle-class house near the Park. It is furnished in the conventional modern style, soberly and without imagination. The room is on the ground floor, facing the street, the door is to the right, and leads into the hall. To the left of this door is a sideboard, glittering with silver. Three tall windows, at the back heavily curtained; between them hang two or three family portraits. The table, on which there is the usual debris of a meal that is over—coffee-cups, liqueur-glasses, etc.—has been laid for four persons, and their four chairs are still around it. The fireplace, with its rather crude and ambitious mantelpiece, is in the centre of the left wall; and uncomfortable-looking heavy armchairs are on each side of it. On the mantelpiece are a marble clock and a few bits of china. In the angle formed at the left side is a small Queen Anne writing-table, open. To the right of the room is a large sofa. The floor is heavily carpeted, and there are many rugs scattered about.
When the curtain rises, the room is in darkness. WILLIAM, the footman, enters hurriedly and switches on the electric light. He rushes to the table, looks eagerly around, shifting cups and glasses, napkins, etc., then goes on his hands and knees and searches on the carpet. After a moment, SMITHERS, the lady's-maid, follows him.
SMITHERS. [Eagerly.] Can't you find it?
WILLIAM. [Sulkily.] No. Not yet. Give me time.
SMITHERS. [Feeling along the table-cloth.] Under one of those rugs, perhaps.
WILLIAM. Well, I'm looking. [Motor-horn sounds sharply, off.] All right, all right!