Coddle (looks out). The villain is smashing every thing I have in the world! Another melon-frame! Jane, hand me my gun! I’ll shoot the rascal! (Seizes gun, Jane takes up a broom.) Follow me, Jane; follow me. The infernal scoundrel!
Jane. Drat the impident rogue! (Both exeunt door in flat.)
(Enter Washington Whitwell, left, gun in hand. Slams door behind him, advances on tiptoe, finger on trigger—glances around.)
Whitwell. Wrong again. Not here. What can have become of the creature! (Sets gun down.) He certainly ran into this house! Egad! whose house is it, by the way? Never saw a finer hare in my life. In all my experience I never saw a finer hare! I couldn’t have bought him in the market under thirty cents. (Rises.) He’s cost me a pretty penny, though. Up at six for a day’s shooting. Dog starts a hare in ten minutes. Aim! Hare goes off, gun don’t. Bad cap. Off I go, however, hot foot after him. He runs into a thicket. Rustic appears. I hail him. “Hallo, friend! A dollar if you’ll start out that hare.” A dollar for a hare worth thirty cents! say thirty-five. Out he comes; dog after him. Aim again. This time gun goes off, dog don’t. Shot him. Worth forty dollars. Total so far, forty-one dollars. Load again. Hare gives me a run of five miles. Stop to rest; drop asleep. Wake up, and see hare not ten yards away, munching a cabbage. Gun again, and after him. He jumps over a fence; I jump over a fence. He comes down on his fore-paws; I come down on my fore-paws. He recovers his equilibrium; I recover mine (on the flat of my back). Suddenly I observe myself to be hunted by an army of rustics, my dollar friend among them,—well-meaning people, no doubt,—armed with flails, forks, harrows, and ploughs, and greedy for my life. They shout; I run. And here I am, after smashing fifty dollars’ worth of glass and things! Total, including dog, ninety-one dollars, not to mention fine for breaking melon-frames by some miserable justice’s court, say twenty dollars more! Grand total, let me see: yes, a hundred and twenty dollars, more or less, for a hare worth thirty-five cents! say forty. (Noise outside.) Ha! no rest for the wicked here. (Picks up gun, rushes for door in flat—met by Coddle; runs to door at left—met by Jane.) Caught, by Jupiter! (Falls into a chair.)
Coddle. We’ve got the villain. Seize him, Jane, seize him!
Jane. Surrender, young man, in the name of the Continental Congress. (Collars him, and takes away his gun.)
Whitwell. This is a pretty fix.
Coddle. How dare you, sir, violate my privacy? knock down my walls? smash my melon-frames? fire your abominable gun under my window, sir?
Jane. Lord ’a’ mercy! The young man might have killed me. Oh, you assassinating wretch!