The Big Drum: A Comedy in Four Acts

by Arthur Wing Pinero

THE THIRD ACT

The scene represents two rooms, connected by a pair of wide doors, in a set of residential chambers on the upper floor of a house in Gray's Inn. The further room is the dining-room, the nearer room a study. In the wall at the back of the dining-room are two windows; in the right-hand wall is a door leading to the kitchen; and in the left-hand wall a door opens from a vestibule, where, opposite this door, there is another door which gives on to the landing of the common stair.

In the study, a door in the right-hand wall admits to a bedroom; in the wall facing the spectator is a door opening into the room from the vestibule; and beyond the door on the right, in a piece of wall cutting off the corner of the room, is the fireplace. A bright fire is burning.

The rooms are wainscotted to the ceilings and have a decrepit, old-world air, and the odds and ends of furniture—all characteristic of the dwelling of a poor literary man of refined taste—are in keeping with the surroundings. In the dining-room there are half-a-dozen chairs of various patterns, a sideboard or two, a corner-cupboard, a "grandfather" clock, and a large round table. In the study, set out into the room at the same angle as the fireplace, is a writing-table. A chair stands at the writing-table, its back to the fire, and in the front of the table is a well-worn settee. On the left of the settee is a smaller table, on which are an assortment of pipes, a box of cigars and another of cigarettes, a tobacco-jar, an ash-tray, and a bowl of matches; and on the left of the table is a capacious arm-chair. There is an arm-chair on either side of the fireplace; and against the right-hand wall, on the nearer side of the bedroom door, is a cabinet.

On the other side of the room, facing the bedroom door, there is a second settee, and behind the settee is an oblong table littered with books and magazines. At a little distance from this table stands an arm-chair, and against the wall at the back, on the left of the big doors, is a chair of a lighter sort. Also against the back wall, but on the left of the door opening from the vestibule, is a table with a telephone-instrument upon it, and running along the left-hand wall is a dwarf bookcase, unglazed, packed with books which look as if they would be none the worse for being dusted and put in order.

In the vestibule, against the wall on the right, there is a small table on which are Philip's hats, caps, and gloves; and an overcoat and a man's cape are hanging on some pegs.

It is late on a November afternoon. Curtains are drawn across the dining-room windows, and the room is lighted rather dimly by an electric lamp standing upon a sideboard. A warm glow proceeds from the nearer right-hand corner as from a fire. The study is lighted by a couple of standard lamps and a library-lamp on the writing-table, and the vestibule by a lamp suspended from the ceiling.

The big doors are open.

[Philip, a pipe in his mouth and wearing an old velvet jacket, is lying upon the settee on the right, reading a book by the light of the lamp on the writing-table. In the dining-room, John and a waiter—the latter in his shirt-sleeves—are at the round table, unfolding a white table-cloth.

John.