FELIX: (Holding up roll of bills.) Well, I've extracted some of the root all right, all right. (FELIX exits at right.)
(Big SINGING NUMBER by VIOLA and ladies of company.)
(Then, MR. MAYNARD enters from the house.)
GOLDIE: In behalf of all your friends who are assembled here today,
Mr. Maynard, I want to congratulate you on your birthday anniversary.
MAYNARD: Ah, thank you, ladies, I appreciate your good wishes very much.
DORA: I hope you will live to be a hundred years old.
MAYNARD: (Laughing.) I hope so—but why should the Lord take me for a hundred when he can get me at 70?
(OLD BLACK JOE comes ambling in from Right to melody of "Old Black
Joe.")
MAYNARD: Well, Old Black Joe, how are you feeling today?
JOE: Well, Massa, I'se got rheumatiz in the lef' shoulder—an' de lumbago in mah back—an' I don' hear very well—an' ma teeth am troubling me some—an' mah eyes is going back on me—an' mah stomach ain't as good as it used to be—but otherwise, Massa, I'se feelin' as sound as a nut.