Magic | Page 4

voice.] Don't bother. It's only his
broad-mindedness.
DUKE. [With unabated cheerfulness.] I saw the place you're putting up
for it, Mr. Smith. Very good work. Very good work, indeed. Art for the
people, eh? I particularly liked that woodwork over the west door--I'm
glad to see you're using the new sort of graining ... why, it all reminds

one of the French Revolution.
[Another silence. As the DUKE lounges alertly about the room, SMITH
speaks to the DOCTOR in an undertone.
SMITH. Does it remind you of the French Revolution?
DOCTOR. As much as of anything else. His Grace never reminds me
of anything.
[A young and very high American voice is heard calling in the garden.
"Say, could somebody see to one of these trunks?"
[MR. HASTINGS goes out into the garden. He returns with MORRIS
CARLEON, a very young man: hardly more than a boy, but with very
grown-up American dress and manners. He is dark, smallish, and
active; and the racial type under his Americanism is Irish.
MORRIS. [Humorously, as he puts in his head at the window.] See
here, does a Duke live here?
DOCTOR. [Who is nearest to him, with great gravity.] Yes, only one.
MORRIS. I reckon he's the one I want, anyhow. I'm his nephew.
[The DUKE, who is ruminating in the foreground, with one eye rather
off, turns at the voice and shakes MORRIS warmly by the hand.
DUKE. Delighted to see you, my dear boy. I hear you've been doing
very well for yourself.
MORRIS. [Laughing.] Well, pretty well, Duke; and better still for Paul
T. Vandam, I guess. I manage the old man's mines out in Arizona, you
know.
DUKE. [Shaking his head sagaciously.] Ah, very go-ahead man! Very
go-ahead methods, I'm told. Well, I dare say he does a great deal of
good with his money. And we can't go back to the Spanish Inquisition.

[Silence, during which the three men look at each other.
MORRIS. [Abruptly.] And how's Patricia?
DUKE. [A little hazily.] Oh, she's very well, I think. She....
[He hesitates slightly.
MORRIS. [Smiling.] Well, then, where's Patricia?
[There is a slightly embarrassed pause, and the DOCTOR speaks.
DOCTOR. Miss Carleon is walking about the grounds, I think.
[MORRIS goes to the garden doors and looks out.
MORRIS. It's a mighty chilly night to choose. Does my sister
commonly select such evenings to take the air--and the damp?
DOCTOR. [After a pause.] If I may say so, I quite agree with you. I
have often taken the liberty of warning your sister against going out in
all weathers like this.
DUKE. [Expansively waving his hands about.] The artist temperament!
What I always call the artistic temperament! Wordsworth, you know,
and all that.
[Silence.
MORRIS. [Staring.] All what?
DUKE. [Continuing to lecture with enthusiasm.] Why, everything's
temperament, you know! It's her temperament to see the fairies. It's my
temperament not to see the fairies. Why, I've walked all round the
grounds twenty times and never saw a fairy. Well, it's like that about
this wizard or whatever she calls it. For her there is somebody there.
For us there would not be somebody there. Don't you see?
MORRIS. [Advancing excitedly.] Somebody there! What do you mean?

DUKE. [Airily.] Well, you can't quite call it a man.
MORRIS. [Violently.] A man!
DUKE. Well, as old Buffle used to say, what is a man?
MORRIS. [With a strong rise of the American accent.] With your
permission, Duke, I eliminate old Buffle. Do you mean that anybody
has had the tarnation coolness to suggest that some man....
DUKE. Oh, not a man, you know. A magician, something mythical,
you know.
SMITH. Not a man, but a medicine man.
DOCTOR. [Grimly.] I am a medicine man.
MORRIS. And you don't look mythical, Doc.
[He bites his finger and begins to pace restlessly up and down the
room.
DUKE. Well, you know, the artistic temperament....
MORRIS. [Turning suddenly.] See here, Duke! In most commercial
ways we're a pretty forward country. In these moral ways we're content
to be a pretty backward country. And if you ask me whether I like my
sister walking about the woods on a night like this! Well, I don't.
DUKE. I am afraid you Americans aren't so advanced as I'd hoped.
Why! as old Buffle used to say....
[As he speaks a distant voice is heard singing in the garden; it comes
nearer and nearer, and SMITH turns suddenly to the DOCTOR.
SMITH. Whose voice is that?
DOCTOR. It is no business of mine to decide!

MORRIS. [Walking to the window.] You need not trouble. I know who
it is.
Enter PATRICIA CARLEON
[Still agitated.] Patricia, where have you been?
PATRICIA. [Rather wearily.] Oh! in Fairyland.
DOCTOR. [Genially.] And whereabouts is that?
PATRICIA. It's rather different from other places. It's either nowhere