[The door opens, and Ensign Simple, half undressed, enters, pushing before him a small donkey. A roar of laughter greets the visitors.
Ensign Simple. You may laugh, Gentlemen, but I am determined to have satisfaction for this disgraceful conduct. (Another roar of laughter.) It is no joke—it is a most disgraceful liberty to take with any one; and I will not suffer it. I neither offend nor meddle with any body, and I expect nobody will meddle with me.
Lieut. Short. What, in the name of all that’s beautiful! is the matter with you? Are you mad?
Ensign Simple. Mad! No, Sir; but I have been disgracefully treated. This donkey, Sir, has been brought up to my room, and tied fast in my bed, Sir;—the whole of my apartment, Sir, has been dirtied and disfigured by the brute. (Shouts of laughter.) You are all concerned in this shameful trick. Why don’t you play upon those who deserve it? I never make free with any of you.
Lieut. Short. Perhaps that’s the reason they play tricks on you.
Ensign Simple. Then I am determined to put it down. I bore with former insults, but I will not with this. You took a leg of mutton and a pound of butter out of my cupboard last week, and put them between my sheets, along with the fender: this I took no notice of. But to put a creature like that into my bed, dirty as he is—I’ll never bear with it. I’ll write to my father to-morrow to come down and investigate the affair.
Ensign Buckskin. You must be a clever fellow, as well as a very presuming one, to fix the donkey-saddle on us. Who told you that we did it?
Ensign Simple. I know it was some of you, if not all.
Ensign Buckskin. Come, ask the gentleman himself who tied him in the bed; he knows more about it than you do, a great jackass as he is.
Ensign Luby. (to the Donkey.) Who tied you, Sir?—hic—eh?—He won’t answer.