First Plays | Page 9

may have the name without the
money if you like. But you must have the name.
CRAWSHAW (disappointed). Ah! (Bravely) Of course, I have nothing
against the name, a good old Hampshire name--
CLIFTON (shocked). My dear Mr. Crawshaw, you didn't think--you
didn't really think that anybody had been called Wurzel-Flummery
before? Oh no, no. You and Mr. Meriton were to be the first, the
founders of the clan, the designers of the Wurzel-Flummery sporran--
CRAWSHAW. What do you mean, sir? Are you telling me that it is not
a real name at all?
CLIFTON. Oh, it's a name all right. I know it is because--er--I made it
up.
CRAWSHAW (outraged). And you have the impudence to propose, sir,
that I should take a made-up name?
CLIFTON (soothingly). Well, all names are made up some time or
other. Somebody had to think of--Adam.
CRAWSHAW. I warn you, Mr. Clifton, that I do not allow this trifling
with serious subjects.
CLIFTON. It's all so simple, really. ... You see, my Uncle Antony was
a rather unusual man. He despised money. He was not afraid to put it in
its proper place. The place he put it in was--er--a little below golf and a
little above classical concerts. If a man said to him, "Would you like to
make fifty thousand this afternoon?" he would say--well, it would
depend what he was doing. If he were going to have a round at Walton
Heath--
CRAWSHAW. It's perfectly scandalous to talk of money in this way.
CLIFTON. Well, that's how he talked about it. But he didn't find many
to agree with him. In fact, he used to say that there was nothing,
however contemptible, that a man would not do for money. One day I
suggested that if he left a legacy with a sufficiently foolish name
attached to it, somebody might be found to refuse it. He laughed at the
idea. That put me on my mettle. "Two people," I said; "leave the same
silly name to two people, two well-known people, rival politicians, say,
men whose own names are already public property. Surely they

wouldn't both take it." That touched him. "Denis, my boy, you've got
it," he said. "Upon what vile bodies shall we experiment?" We decided
on you and Mr. Meriton. The next thing was to choose the name. I
started on the wrong lines. I began by suggesting names like Porker,
Tosh, Bugge, Spiffkins--the obvious sort. My uncle--
CRAWSHAW (boiling with indignation). How dare you discuss me
with your uncle, Sir! How dare you decide in this cold-blooded way
whether I am to be called--ah--Tosh--or--ah--Porker!
CLIFTON. My uncle wouldn't bear of Tosh or Porker. He wanted a
humorous name--a name he could roll lovingly round his tongue--a
name expressing a sort of humorous contempt--Wurzel-Flummery! I
can see now the happy ruminating smile which carne so often on my
Uncle Antony's face in those latter months. He was thinking of his two
Wurzel-Flummerys. I remember him saying once--it was at the
Zoo--what a pity it was he hadn't enough to divide among the whole
Cabinet. A whole bunch of Wurzel-Flummerys; it would have been
rather jolly.
CRAWSHAW. You force me to say, sir, that if that was the way you
and your uncle used to talk together at his death can only be described
as a merciful intervention of Providence.
CLIFTON. Oh, but I think he must be enjoying all this somewhere, you
know. I hope he is. He would have loved this morning. It was his one
regret that from the necessities of the case he could not live to enjoy his
own joke; but he had hopes that echoes of it would reach him wherever
he might be. It was with some such idea, I fancy, that toward the end he
became interested in spiritualism.
CRAWSHAW (rising solemnly). Mr. Clifton, I have no interest in the
present whereabouts of your uncle, nor in what means he has of
overhearing a private conversation between you and myself. But if, as
you irreverently suggest, he is listening to us, I should like him to hear
this. That, in my opinion, you are not a qualified solicitor at all, that
you never had an uncle, and that the whole story of the will and the
ridiculous condition attached to it is just the tomfool joke of a man who,
by his own admission, wastes most of his time writing unsuccessful
farces. And I propose--
CLIFTON. Pardon my interrupting. But you said farces. Not farces,
comedies--of a whimsical nature.

CRAWSHAW. Whatever they were, sir, I propose to report the whole
matter to the Law Society. And you know your way out, sir.
CLIFTON. Then I am to understand that you refuse the legacy, Mr.
Crawshaw?
CRAWSHAW (startled). What's that?
CLIFTON. I am