第44章
Remember, you lead the House of Lords! On your demise I shall take your place! Oh, Thomas, it would not last a day!
PHYL.(coming down).Now, I do hope you're not going to fight about me, because it's really not worth while.
LORD TOLL.(looking at her).Well, I don't believe it is!
LORD MOUNT.Nor I.The sacred ties of Friendship are paramount.
QUARTET--LORD MOUNTARARAT, LORD TOLLOLLER, PHYLLIS, and PRIVATE WILLIS.
LORD TOLL.Though p'r'aps I may incur your blame, The things are few I would not do In Friendship's name!
LORD MOUNT.And I may say I think the same;Not even love Should rank above True Friendship's name!
PHYL.Then free me, pray; be mine the blame;Forget your craze And go your ways In Friendship's name!
ALL.Oh, many a man, in Friendship's name, Has yielded fortune, rank, and fame!
But no one yet, in the world so wide, Has yielded up a promised bride!
WILLIS.Accept, O Friendship, all the same,ALL.This sacrifice to thy dear name!
(Exeunt Lord Mountararat and Lord Tolloller, lovingly, in one direction, and Phyllis in another.Exit Sentry.)(Enter Lord Chancellor, very miserable.)RECITATIVE--LORD CHANCELLOR.
Love, unrequited, robs me of my rest:
Love, hopeless love, my ardent soul encumbers:
Love, nightmare-like, lies heavy on my chest, And weaves itself into my midnight slumbers!
SONG--LORD CHANCELLOR.
When you're lying awake with a dismal headache, and repose is taboo'd by anxiety, I conceive you may use any language you choose to indulge in, without impropriety;For your brain is on fire--the bedclothes conspire of usual slumber to plunder you:
First your counterpane goes, and uncovers your toes, and your sheet slips demurely from under you;Then the blanketing tickles--you feel like mixed pickles--so terribly sharp is the pricking, And you're hot, and you're cross, and you tumble and toss till there's nothing 'twixt you and the ticking.
Then the bedclothes all creep to the ground in a heap, and you pick 'em all up in a tangle;Next your pillow resigns and politely declines to remain at its usual angle!
Well, you get some repose in the form of a doze, with hot eye-balls and head ever aching.
But your slumbering teems with such horrible dreams that you'd very much better be waking;For you dream you are crossing the Channel, and tossing about in a steamer from Harwich--Which is something between a large bathing machine and a very small second-class carriage--And you're giving a treat (penny ice and cold meat) to a party of friends and relations--They're a ravenous horde--and they all came on board at Sloane Square and South Kensington Stations.
And bound on that journey you find your attorney (who started that morning from Devon);He's a bit undersized, and you don't feel surprised when he tells you he's only eleven.
Well, you're driving like mad with this singular lad (by the by, the ship's now a four-wheeler), And you're playing round games, and he calls you bad names when you tell him that "ties pay the dealer";But this you can't stand, so you throw up your hand, and you find you're as cold as an icicle, In your shirt and your socks (the black silk with gold clocks), crossing Salisbury Plain on a bicycle:
And he and the crew are on bicycles too--which they've somehow or other invested in--And he's telling the tars all the particulars of a company he's interested in--It's a scheme of devices, to get at low prices all goods from cough mixtures to cables (Which tickled the sailors), by treating retailers as though they were all vegetables--You get a good spadesman to plant a small tradesman (first take off his boots with a boot-tree), And his legs will take root, and his fingers will shoot, and they'll blossom and bud like a fruit-tree--From the greengrocer tree you get grapes and green pea, cauliflower, pineapple, and cranberries, While the pastrycook plant cherry brandy will grant, apple puffs, and three corners, and Banburys--The shares are a penny, and ever so many are taken by Rothschild and Baring, And just as a few are allotted to you, you awake with a shudder despairing--You're a regular wreck, with a crick in your neck, and no wonder you snore, for your head's on the floor, and you've needles and pins from your soles to your shins, and your flesh is a-creep, for your left leg's asleep, and you've cramp in your toes, and a fly on your nose, and some fluff in your lung, and a feverish tongue, and a thirst that's intense, and a general sense that you haven't been sleeping in clover;But the darkness has passed, and it's daylight at last, and the night has been long--ditto ditto my song--and thank goodness they're both of them over!
(Lord Chancellor falls exhausted on a seat.)(Enter Lords Mountararat and Tolloller.)LORD MOUNT.I am much distressed to see your Lordship in this condition.
LORD CH.Ah, my Lords, it is seldom that a Lord Chancellor has reason to envy the position of another, but I am free to confess that I would rather be two Earls engaged to Phyllis than any other half-dozen noblemen upon the face of the globe.
LORD TOLL.(without enthusiasm).Yes.It's an enviable position when you're the only one.
LORD MOUNT.Oh yes, no doubt--most enviable.At the same time, seeing you thus, we naturally say to ourselves, "This is very sad.His Lordship is constitutionally as blithe as a bird--he trills upon the bench like a thing of song and gladness.His series of judgements in F sharp minor, given andante in six-eight time, are among the most remarkable effects ever produced in a Court of Chancery.He is, perhaps, the only living instance of a judge whose decrees have received the honour of a double encore.