Car. And yet how nobly you would lead your troops into action, caracolling at their head on a proud Arabian barb, and rousing them to very frenzy by shouting forth martial songs of your own composition! Oh! it would madden them!
Tom. Yes, I think it would! But at present I’ve only my half-pay—a pound a week—and we can’t marry on that.
Car. Why not? It is ten shillings a week each. I am content if you are. Say, Arthur, shall we be made one?
Tom. My dear Caroline, it’s nonsense to talk about being made one. (She takes out her note-book.) It’s my experience that when poor people marry, they’re made half a dozen, at least, in no time!
Car. Arthur! (Shuts up book.) Well, I must wait and hope. Oh for a war! (Cobb much alarmed.) A vast, vast, vast war! Oh for the clash of steel-clad foemen! Oh for the deadly cannonade! And loud above the din of battle, I bear my Arthur’s voice, as, like a doughty Paladin of old, he cleaves his path where’er the fight is thickest! Oh! I think I see him doing it!
[Exit Caroline.
Tom. Yes. I think I see myself doing it! Poor, dear girl, it’s a shame to deceive her, but what can I do in the face of this confounded advertisement, which still appears in all the papers every day! (Reads.) “£50 reward will be paid to any one who will give any information concerning the whereabouts of Thomas Cobb, M.R.C.S. Apply to Docket and Tape, 27, Paragon, Somers Town!” For just six mouths this blighting paragraph has appeared in every paper in London. Every one is talking about it; a Christmas annual has been published, “How we found Tom Cobb,” and a farce, called “Tom Cobb found at last,” is playing at a principal theatre!
Enter Whipple.
Tom. Whipple, you here?