Yardsley. I’ll write a tragedy to go with it. But I say, Thad, we want those dining-room portières of yours. Get ’em down for us, will you?
Perkins. Dining-room portières! What for?
Mrs. Perkins. They all think the fireplace would better be hid, Thaddeus, dear. It wouldn’t look well in a conservatory.
Perkins. I suppose not. And the dining-room portières are wanted to cover up the fireplace?
Yardsley. Precisely. You have a managerial brain, Thaddeus. You can see at once what a dining-room portière is good for. If ever I am cast away on a desert island, with nothing but a dining-room portière for solace, I hope you’ll be along to take charge of it. In your hands its possibilities are absolutely unlimited. Get them for us, old man; and while you are about it, bring a stepladder. (Exit Perkins, dejectedly.) Now, Barlow, you and Bradley help me with this piano. Pianos may do well enough in gardens or pirates’ caves, but for conservatories they’re not worth a rap.
Mrs. Bradley. Wait a moment. We must take the bric-à-brac from the top of it before you touch it. If there are two incompatible things in this world, they are men and bric-à-brac.
Mrs. Perkins. You are so thoughtful, though I am sure that Mr. Yardsley would not break anything willingly.
Barlow. Nothing but the ten commandments.
Yardsley. They aren’t bric-à-brac; and I thank you, Mrs. Perkins, for your expression of confidence. I wouldn’t intentionally go into the house of another man and toss his Sevres up in the air, or throw his Royal Worcester down-stairs, except under very great provocation. (Mrs. Perkins and Mrs. Bradley have by this time removed the bric-à-brac from the piano—an upright.) Now, boys, are you ready?
Bradley. Where is it to be moved to?