Scene—A Metropolitan railway terminus, though you wouldn't perhaps recognise it, because it looks a little like the interior of a Greek cathedral and a little like the fair at Nijni Novgorod, and the posters have obviously been painted by Mr. Wyndham Lewis or somebody like that. One porter is discovered leaning against an automatic sweet machine designed by an Expressionist sculptor. He is wearing a long mole-coloured smock, and looking with extreme disfavour at his luggage-truck, which has somehow got itself painted bright blue and green, with red wheels. Music by J. H. Thomaski.
[Enter L., puffing slowly, the boat-train. The engine and carriages resemble Early-Victorian prints. Madame Pavlova descends, and in a very expressive dance conveys to the Porter that she has one or two trunks in the guard's van which she wants him to convey to a taxicab.
Porter. 'Ow many is there, lady?
[Pavlova pirouettes a little more and points three hundred and eighty-five times at the station-roof with her right toe.
Porter. Can't be done nohow.
[Pavlova dances a dance indicative of absolute and heartrending despair, terminating in an appeal to the heavens to come to her aid. Enter R. an important-looking personage with a long white beard, wearing a costume which might be, called a commissionaire's if it wasn't so like a harlequin's.
Porter (impressively and with evident relief). The Stazione Maestro!
The Stazione Maestro. What's all this?
[Pavlova dances an explanation of the impasse. The S.-M. and the Porter remove their caps and scratch their heads solemnly, to slow music.
The S.-M. (after deep cogitation). This must be referred to the N.U.R.