[He goes out in haste.]
Chief Humble-man [clinking the coins]. Third time of arskin’! April fool! Not ’arf. Good old Pigeon!
Second Humble-man. ’Uman being, I call ’im.
Chief Humble-man [taking three glasses from the last packing-case, and pouring very equally into them]. That’s right. Tell you wot, I’d never ’a’ touched this unless ’e’d told me, I wouldn’t—not with ’im.
Second Humble-man. Ditto to that! This is a bit of orl right! [Raising his glass.] Good luck!
Third Humble-man. Same ’ere!
[Simultaneously they place their lips smartly against the liquor, and at once let fall their faces and their glasses.]
Chief Humble-man [with great solemnity]. Crikey! Bill! Tea!... E’s got us!
[The stage is blotted dark.]
The Little Dream is rather a bitter allegory of the adventures of the soul in search of life and happiness. Seelchen, the little mountain girl, hears the call of the Wine Horn, typifying the delights of the town and the world, and the Cow Horn, typifying the pleasures of her mountain home, but there is a strange resemblance in the hard disillusions they are bound to offer after their gifts, and only the lonely Great Horn behind points to something finer and higher. There is really not much interest, or indeed, much originality in the little sketch, but there is some beautiful language, and Galsworthy is able to give free rein to his sense of words and poetic faculty. There is real poetry in some of the lyrics, and by them, rather than by his published volume of verse, one judges him poet as well as playwright.