COLUMBINE: Lord, what a mess This set is in! If there's one thing I hate Above everything else,—even more than getting my feet wet— It's clutter!—He might at least have left the scene The way he found it ... don't you say so, Pierrot?
[She picks up punch bowl. They arrange chairs as before at ends
of table.]
PIERROT: Well, I don't know. I think it rather diverting The way it is.
[Yawns, picks up confetti bowl.]
Shall we begin?
COLUMBINE: [Screams.] My God! What's that there under the table?
PIERROT: It is the bodies Of the two shepherds from the other play.
COLUMBINE: [Slowly.] How curious to strangle him like that, With colored paper ribbons.
PIERROT: Yes, and yet I dare say he is just as dead. [Pauses. Calls.] Cothurnus! Come drag these bodies out of here! We can't Sit down and eat with two dead bodies lying Under the table! . . . The audience wouldn't stand for it!
COTHURNUS: (Off stage.) What makes you think so?— Pull down the tablecloth On the other side, and hide them from the house, And play the farce. The audience will forget.