Literature is reprinted from "Comedies of Words" by Arthur Schnitzler, by
permission of Messrs. Stewart & Kidd Company, Cincinnati, Ohio.
LITERATURE
A Comedy
By Arthur Schnitzler
[Scene: Moderately well, but quite inexpensively furnished apartments occupied by Margaret. A small fireplace, a table, a small escritoire, a settee, a wardrobe cabinet, two windows in the back, entrances left and right.
As the curtain rises, Clement, dressed in a modish, tarnished-gray sack suit, is discovered reclining in a fauteuil near the fireplace. He is smoking a cigarette and perusing a newspaper. Margaret is standing at the window. She walks back and forth, finally goes up directly behind Clement, and playfully musses his hair. Evidently she has something troublesome on her mind.]
Clem. [reading, seizes her hand and kisses it]. Horner's certain about his pick and doubly certain about mine; Waterloo five to one; Barometer twenty-one to one; Busserl seven to one; Attila sixteen to one.
Marg. Sixteen to one!
Clem. Lord Byron one and one-half to one—that's us, my dear.