Beppo. Mon-seig-neur!
(He looks up startled as both Nurse and Doctor make angry, violent gestures towards him of ‘’Ssh! ’Ssh!’, and then at his good friend, the Bishop, wondering what wrong it is he has done. A slight pause, while no sound comes from the bed. Then the Nurse goes up to him, beckoning him angrily, and once he is within the chamber draws the heavy hangings again over the corridor entrance.)
Nurse (in an angry whisper). Bawling and singing, like a drunken gipsy!
Beppo (faces her with an engaging smile). Mind my pretty nestlings. (And chants over them, softly and melodiously.) They are for Mon-seig-neur!
Nurse (in his face, sharply). ’Ssh! Vagabond!
Beppo (while the Nurse goes to the bed and peeps through the curtains, chants again very softly over his birds’-nest). For Mon-seig-neur!
Nurse (turns towards them and whispers). He is just off again. Fast asleep. (So she sits and resumes her sewing at the foot of the bed, while the Bishop also glances through the curtains, and Beppo, always absorbed over the birds’-nest, goes to show it to the Doctor.)
Bishop (with a heavy sigh). The last of his race! It would have killed his father. (Pause.)
Beppo. Doctor Mabrise! Look!
Doctor. What are they?