Dear Brutus | Page 6

feel equal to a little exertion
to-night, Coady, or is your foot troubling you?
MRS. COADE (the kind creature). I have been resting it, Coady.
COADE (propping it on the footstool). There! Is that more comfortable?
Presently, dear, if you are agreeable we are all going out for a walk.
MRS. COADE (quoting MATEY). The garden is all right.
PURDIE (with jocular solemnity). Ah, but it is not to be the garden.
We are going farther afield. We have an adventure for to-night. Get
thick shoes and a wrap, Mrs. Dearth; all of you.

LADY CAROLINE (with but languid interest). Where do you propose
to take us?
PURDIE. To find a mysterious wood. (With the word 'wood' the ladies
are blown upright. Their eyes turn to LOB, who, however, has never
looked more innocent).
JOANNE. Are you being funny, Mr. Purdie? You know quite well that
there are not any trees for miles around. You have said yourself that it
is the one blot on the landscape.
COADE (almost as great a humorist as PURDIE). Ah, on ordinary
occasions! But allow us to point out to you, Miss Joanna, that this is
Midsummer Eve.
(LOB again comes sharply under female observation.)
PURDIE. Tell them what you told us, Lob.
LOB (with a pout for the credulous). It is all nonsense, of course; just
foolish talk of the villagers. They say that on Midsummer Eve there is a
strange wood in this part of the country.
ALICE (lowering). Where?
PURDIE. Ah, that is one of its most charming features. It is never twice
in the same place apparently. It has been seen on different parts of the
Downs and on More Common; once it was close to Radley village and
another time about a mile from the sea. Oh, a sporting wood!
LADY CAROLINE. And Lob is anxious that we should all go and look
for it?
COADE. Not he; Lob is the only sceptic in the house. Says it is all
rubbish, and that we shall be sillies if we go. But we believe, eh,
Purdie?
PURDIE (waggishly). Rather!

LOB (the artful). Just wasting the evening. Let us have a round game at
cards here instead.
PURDIE (grandly), No, sir, I am going to find that wood.
JOANNA. What is the good of it when it is found?
PURDIE. We shall wander in it deliciously, listening to a new sort of
bird called the Philomel.
(LOB is behaving in the most exemplary manner; making sweet little
clucking sounds.)
JOANNA (doubtfully). Shall we keep together, Mr. Purdie?
PURDIE. No, we must hunt in pairs.
JOANNA. (converted). I think it would he rather fun. Come on, Coady,
I'll lace your boots for you. I am sure your poor foot will carry you
nicely.
ALICE. Miss Trout, wait a moment. Lob, has this wonderful wood any
special properties?
LOB. Pooh! There's no wood.
LADY CAROLINE. You've never seen it?
LOB. Not I. I don't believe in it.
ALICE. Have any of the villagers ever been in it?
LOB (dreamily). So it's said; so it's said.
ALICE. What did they say were their experiences?
LOB. That isn't known. They never came back.
JOANNA (promptly resuming her seat). Never came back!

LOB. Absurd, of course. You see in the morning the wood was gone;
and so they were gone, too. (He clucks again.)
JOANNA. I don't think I like this wood.
MRS. COADE. It certainly is Midsummer Eve.
COADE (remembering that women are not yet civilised). Of course if
you ladies are against it we will drop the idea. It was only a bit of fun.
ALICE (with a malicious eye on LOB). Yes, better give it up--to please
Lob.
PURDIE. Oh, all right, Lob. What about that round game of cards?
(The proposal meets with approval.)
LOB (bursting into tears). I wanted you to go. I had set my heart on
your going. It is the thing I wanted, and it isn't good for me not to get
the thing I want.
(He creeps under the table and threatens the hands that would draw him
out.)
MRS. COADE. Good gracious, he has wanted it all the time. You
wicked Lob!
ALICE. Now, you see there is something in it.
COADE. Nonsense, Mrs. Dearth, it was only a joke.
MABEL (melting). Don't cry, Lobby.
LOB. Nobody cares for me--nobody loves me. And I need to be loved.
(Several of them are on their knees to him.)
JOANNA. Yes, we do, we all love you. Nice, nice Lobby.

MABEL. Dear Lob, I am so fond of you.
JOANNA. Dry his eyes with my own handkerchief. (He holds up his
eyes but is otherwise inconsolable.)
LADY CAROLINE. Don't pamper him.
LOB (furiously). I need to be pampered.
MRS. COADE. You funny little man. Let us go at once and look for