WAITER.
Vill you your name in dese book write? (Presenting visitors' book.)
BOX.
I will. (Writes.) Don José John de Boxos Cazadores Regalias, Spain.
WAITER.
Dank you, milor!
[Exit Waiter C.
We know what we are, but we never know what we shall be. I am not quite clear at present, by the way, what I am, let alone what I shall be. If anybody three months ago had said to me, “Box, my boy, you are a grandee of Spain” . . . I should have said that he was a . . . in point of fact I shouldn't have believed him. But still I am—that is, partially so—I'm gradually becoming one. At present I'm only half a grandee. Three months ago a friend, my legal adviser, a law stationer's senior clerk, near Chancery Lane, said to me, “Box, my boy, you've got Spanish blood in you.” I said that I had suspected as much from my peculiar and extreme partiality for the vegetable called a Spanish onion, and I was going to a doctor, when my friend and legal adviser said to me, “Box, my boy, I don't mean that. I mean that your great grandmother was of Spanish extraction.” I replied that I had heard that they had extracted my great grandmother from that quarter, “I came across some papers,” continued my legal adviser, “which allude to her as Donna Isidora y Caballeros, Carvalhos y Cazadores y Regalias, Salamanca, Spain, who married John Box, trader, of Eliza Lane, St. Margaret's Wharf, Wapping. Date and all correct. Go,” says he—I mean my legal adviser—“go to Spain, and claim your title, your estates, and your money, and I'll stand in with you, and take half the profits.” I was struck by this remarkably handsome offer, and went down to Margate to cultivate a Spanish moustache and think about it. Whenever I want to think about anything deeply, I go down to Margate. Well, one morning as I was examining the progress of my moustache, after shaving my chin and letting out some of the blue blood of the Hidalgos in a most tremendous gash, judge of my astonishment, when, walking on the beach, in among the donkeys and the Ethiopian serenaders, I saw in widow's weeds, as majestic as ever, Penelope Anne! (Sings) “I saw her for a moment, but methinks I see her now, with the wreath of—something or other—upon her—something brow”——and then I lost sight of her. But my Spanish blood was up. The extraction from the sunny South boiled in my veins . . . boiled over, when I learnt, on referring to the visitors' list, that Penelope Anne was the relict of the short-breath'd—I mean short-lived but virtuous—Knox, who had left her his entire fortune. All my long-stifled passion returned—the passion which the existence of a Wiggins, her first, had not quenched, which the ephemeral life of a Knox had not extinguished, a passion which I have felt for her before I knew that the blue ink—I mean the blue blood, of the Hidalgos danced in my veins, and while she was only a sweet village maiden eighteen years old, and known to all as Miss Penelope Anne, of Park Place, Pimlico! I determined to go out and throw myself at her feet, declare my passion, and take nothing for an answer except “Box . . . John . . . I'm yours truly, Penelope!” I couldn't present myself before her with a scrubbing-brush on my upper lip. So that afternoon I sacrificed Mars to Venus—I mean I shaved off my moustache for the sake of Penelope Anne. The next morning . . . . Toothache wasn't the name for what I suffered. Face-ache fails to describe my agonies. Neuralgia doesn't give the faintest idea of my tortures. The left side of my face looked exactly as if I was holding a large dumpling in my mouth, or a gigantic ribston-pippin which I couldn't swallow. Swallow! Not a bit of food passed these lips, except slops, beef-tea, and tea without the beef, for days. At the end of a week I was a shadow. Penelope Anne had gone. Where, no one knew. Somebody said they thought it was the Continent. I bought a map and looked out the Continent, but it wasn't in that. I suppose it was an old edition—there have been so many changes, and they're building everywhere—so I consulted my medical man and my legal adviser. The first said, “Get change of air. Go abroad!” The second said, “Seize the opportunity and go to Spain. And,” he added, “come home by the Continent.” That suited me down to the ground. I should get my title, my lands, and my money, meeting Penelope Anne on the Continent. As I was coming back I should be able to offer her the hand and heart of either Don José John de Boxos y Cazadores y Regalias y Caballeros y Carvalhos of Salamanca, Spain, or of plain John Box, of Barnsbury. So here I am. I haven't got the whole title yet, as the Spanish legal gentleman and I didn't hit it off exactly. . . . If I'd only known what he was talking about, it would have shortened the proceedings. However, as that remark applies to all legal business, I couldn't quarrel with a foreigner on that point. Besides, if you quarrel with a Spaniard, his southern blood can't stand it. He stabs you. He's sorry for it afterwards, but that's his noble nature. So I've adopted half the title, and the rest will be sent on to me if the suit is gained. But up to this moment I've not met Penelope Anne. I've had so much of the wines of Spain, that my medical man wrote and advised me to try the waters of Germany. So here I am. (Takes up paper). What's this? Comic Journal, um. “We are sorry to announce the death of . . .” um, um. (reads) “Spain on the eve of a crisis.” . . . There were three while I was there. Nobody took any notice of them. What's this? “Hotel der Schwein and die Pfeife”—that's here—“Mrs. Penelope Anne Knox.” . . . . Don José de Boxos, she's yours. You've only got to propose, and she's yours. Tell her you're a Spanish grandee, and offer her a position as Spanish grandshe. Don Boxos, you've only got to give yourself a brush up, and she's yours. (Taking up Cox's glass of water which he has left on table) I wish myself every possible success! To my future happiness! (drinks.) Ugh! (suddenly makes fearfully wry faces. The clock strikes. Re-enter Cox, R.H.)
COX.