Angels Ministers | Page 8

shall remind you. (She points to the tray.) Pray, help yourself!
(He takes up the decanter.)
LORD B. I serve you, Madam?
QUEEN. Thank you.
(_He fills the two glasses; presents hers to the Queen, and takes up his own_.)
LORD B. May I propose for myself--a toast, Madam?
(_The Queen sees what is coming, and bows graciously_.)
LORD B. The Queen! God bless her!
(_He drains the glass, then breaks it against the pole of the tent, and throws away the stem_.)
An old custom, Madam, observed by loyal defenders of the House of Stewart, so that no lesser health might ever be drunk from the same glass. To my old hand came a sudden access of youthful enthusiasm--an ardour which I could not restrain. Your pardon, Madam!
QUEEN (_very gently_). Go and lie down, Lord Beaconsfield; you need rest.
LORD B. Adieu, Madam.
QUEEN. Draw your curtains, and sleep well!
(_For a moment he stands gazing at her with a look of deep emotion; he tries to speak. Ordinary words seem to fail; he falters into poetry_.)
"When pain and anguish wring the brow, A ministering Angel, thou!"
(_It has been beautifully said, they both feel. Silent and slow, with head reverentially bowed, he backs from the Presence_.)
(_The Queen sits and looks after the retreating figure, then at the broken fragments of glass. She takes up the hand-bell and rings. The Attendant_ ENTERS.)
QUEEN. Pick up that broken glass.
(_The Attendant collects it on the hand-tray which he carries_)
Bring it to me! ... Leave it!
(_The Attendant deposits the tray before her, and_ GOES. _Gently the Queen handles the broken pieces. Then in a voice of tearful emotion she speaks_.)
Such devotion! Most extraordinary! Oh! Albert! Albert!
(_And in the sixteenth year of her widowhood and the fortieth of her reign the Royal Lady bends her head over the fragments of broken glass, and weeps happy tears_.)
CURTAIN

His Favourite Flower
Dramatis Personae
THE STATESMAN THE HOUSEKEEPER THE DOCTOR THE PRIMROSES
His Favourite Flower
A Political Myth Explained
_The eminent old Statesman has not been at all well. He is sitting up in his room, and his doctor has come to see him for the third time in three days. This means that the malady is not yet seriously regarded: once a day is still sufficient. Nevertheless, he is a woeful wreck to look at; and the doctor looks at him with the greatest respect, and listens to his querulous plaint patiently. For that great dome of silence, his brain, repository of so many state-secrets, is still a redoubtable instrument: its wit and its magician's cunning have not yet lapsed into the dull inane of senile decay. Though fallen from power, after a bad beating at the polls, there is no knowing but that he may rise again, and hold once more in those tired old hands, shiny with rheumatic gout, and now twitching feebly under the discomfort of a superimposed malady, the reins of democratic and imperial power. The dark, cavernous eyes still wear their look of accumulated wisdom, a touch also of visionary fire. The sparse locks, dyed to a raven black, set off with their uncanny sheen the clay-like pallor of the face. He sits in a high-backed chair, wrapped in an oriental dressing-gown, his muffled feet resting on a large hot-water bottle; and the eminent physician, preparatory to taking a seat at his side, bends solicitously over him_.
DOCTOR. Well, my dear lord, how are you to-day? Better? You look better.
STATESMAN. Yes, I suppose I am better. But my sleep isn't what it ought to be. I have had a dream, Doctor; and it has upset me.
DOCTOR. A dream?
STATESMAN. You wonder that I should mention it? Of course, I--I don't believe in dreams. Yet they indicate, sometimes--do they not?-certain disorders of the mind.
DOCTOR. Generally of the stomach.
STATESMAN. Ah! The same thing, Doctor. There's no getting away from that in one's old age; when one has lived as well as I have.
DOCTOR. That is why I dieted you.
STATESMAN. Oh, I have nothing on my conscience as to that. My housekeeper is a dragon. Her fidelity is of the kind that will even risk dismissal.
DOCTOR. An invaluable person, under the circumstances.
STATESMAN. Yes; a nuisance, but indispensable. No, Doctor. This dream didn't come from the stomach. It seemed rather to emanate from that outer darkness which surrounds man's destiny. So real, so horribly real!
DOCTOR. Better, then, not to brood on it.
STATESMAN. Ah! Could I explain it, then I might get rid of it. In the ancient religion of my race dreams found their interpretation. But have they any?
DOCTOR. Medical science is beginning to say "Yes"; that in sleep the subconscious mind has its reactions.
STATESMAN. Well, I wonder how my "subconscious mind" got hold of primroses.
DOCTOR. Primroses? Did they form a feature in your dream?
STATESMAN. A feature? No. The whole place was alive with them! As the victim of inebriety sees snakes, I saw primroses. They