Plays of Henley and R.L. Stevenson | Page 8

to my
office, with me and this guid wife.
BRODIE (ASIDE TO JEAN, AS SHE PASSES WITH A CURTSEY).
How dare you be here? (ALOUD TO SMITH.) Wait you here, my man.
SMITH. If you please, sir. (BRODIE GOES OUT, C.)
SCENE VII
BRODIE, SMITH.
BRODIE. What the devil brings you here?
SMITH. CONfound it, Deakin! Not rusty?
[BRODIE. And not you only: Jean too! Are you mad?
SMITH. Why, you don't mean to say, Deakin, that you have been
stodged by G. Smith, Esquire? Plummy old George?]
BRODIE. There was my uncle the Procurator -
SMITH. The Fiscal? He don't count.
BRODIE. What d'ye mean?
SMITH. Well, Deakin, since Fiscal Lawson's Nunkey Lawson, and it's
all in the family way, I don't mind telling you that Nunkey Lawson's a
customer of George's. We give Nunkey Lawson a good deal of brandy -
G. S. and Co.'s celebrated Nantz.
BRODIE. What! does he buy that smuggled trash of yours?
SMITH. Well, we don't call it smuggled in the trade, Deakin. It's a
wink, and King George's picter between G. S. and the Nunks.
BRODIE. Gad! that's worth knowing. O Procurator, Procurator, is there
no such thing as virtue? [ALLONS! It's enough to cure a man of vice
for this world and the other.] But hark you hither, Smith; this is all
damned well in its way, but it don't explain what brings you here.
SMITH. I've trapped a pigeon for you.
BRODIE. Can't you pluck him yourself?
SMITH. Not me. He's too flash in the feather for a simple nobleman
like George Lord Smith. It's the great Capting Starlight, fresh in from
York. [He's exercised his noble art all the way from here to London.
'Stand and deliver, stap my vitals!'] And the north road is no bad lay,
Deakin.
BRODIE. Flush?
SMITH (MIMICKING). 'The graziers, split me! A mail, stap my vitals!
and seven demned farmers, by the Lard - '

BRODIE. By Gad!
SMITH. Good for trade, ain't it? And we thought, Deakin, the Badger
and me, that coins being ever on the vanish, and you not over sweet on
them there lovely little locks at Leslie's, and them there bigger and
uglier marine stores at the Excise Office . . .
BRODIE (IMPASSIBLE). Go on.
SMITH. Worse luck! . . . We thought, me and the Badger, you know,
that maybe you'd like to exercise your helbow with our free and galliant
horseman.
BRODIE. The old move, I presume? the double set of dice?
SMITH. That's the rig, Deakin. What you drop on the square you pick
up again on the cross. [Just as you did with G. S. and Co.'s own agent
and correspondent, the Admiral from Nantz.] You always was a neat
hand with the bones, Deakin.
BRODIE. The usual terms, I suppose?
SMITH. The old discount, Deakin. Ten in the pound for you, and the
rest for your jolly companions every one. [THAT'S the way WE does
it!]
BRODIE. Who has the dice?
SMITH. Our mutual friend, the Candleworm.
BRODIE. You mean Ainslie? - We trust that creature too much,
Geordie.
SMITH. He's all right, Marquis. He wouldn't lay a finger on his own
mother. Why, he's no more guile in him than a set of sheep's trotters.
[BRODIE. You think so? Then see he don't cheat you over the dice,
and give you light for loaded. See to that, George, see to that; and you
may count the Captain as bare as his last grazier.
SMITH. The Black Flag for ever! George'll trot him round to Mother
Clarke's in two twos.] How long'll you be?
BRODIE. The time to lock up and go to bed, and I'll be with you. Can
you find your way out?
SMITH. Bloom on, my Sweet William, in peaceful array. Ta-ta.
SCENE VIII
BRODIE, OLD BRODIE; to whom, MARY
MARY. O Willie, I am glad you did not go with them. I have
something to tell you. If you knew how happy I am, you would clap
your hands, Will. But come, sit you down there, and be my good big

brother, and I will kneel here and take your hand. We must keep close
to dad, and then he will feel happiness in the air. The poor old love, if
we could only tell him! But I sometimes think his heart has gone to
heaven already, and takes a part in all our joys and sorrows; and it is
only his poor body that remains here, helpless and ignorant. Come,
Will, sit you down, and ask me questions - or guess - that will be better,
guess.
BRODIE. Not to-night, Mary; not to-night. I have other fish to fry, and
they won't wait.
MARY. Not one minute for your sister? One little minute for your little
sister?
BRODIE. Minutes