PLUM

Oh, it is anguish for a horse to suffer
The opposing reins of office and affection,
Which right and left distract the tender mind!
But this no Englishman has done, nor shall:
Make duty servant to his inclinations.

Take you these papers and at once write down
Your names and callings, titles, dignities,
Estates and mansions, orders, decorations,
Whether in wedlock you be joined or no,
How many children, houses, wives, convictions,
With all such details and appendages
As shall be pertinent. And in the morning
At Bow Street presently make apparition.
Now to your homes go softly.

SNEAK

I am a detective,
Now by the Duke of Canterbury charged
To see, watch, notice, and at dawn discover
The nightly conduct of this noblewoman.

DUCHESS Now open, earth, and hide me!

SNEAK

'Sneak,' said he,

"Good, honest Sneak, if you have any skill
Or any pity for a poor old man,

Find me that snake and serpent in the grass

Which hath drawn off my Duchess from her duty,
So that in naughtiness and vain delights

She doth dishonor the evening of our days

And utterly neglects the housekeeping.

Find me this worm, good Sneak, that I may split him!'
Thus the old Duke, with bloody, fearful oaths,
Cleaning a pistol by his lonely bed

Or whetting some great knife upon a stone;
And thus at daybreak shall I answer him:
'Duke, he is found, your ravisher of homes,
Snake in the grass and cuckoo in the nest,
A little, round, unpleasant, portly thing
Which crawls, part trespasser and part policeman,
Into the childish revels of the rich,

Toys with their wives and tramples on their toes,
Eats of their salt and presently arrests them.
For some sly spinster's quibble in the law,
And while he smiles contaminates the air
With artful ruse and mean suspi-ci-on;
Will call for wine to catch a flunky out,

And drink with women only to denounce them.
This, Duke, is he that, doubly double-faced,
Has the pure spirit of your wife corrupted,
Night after night, entwinèd in the dance,
Which I with evidence can justify.

This scheming, slow, constabulary lump,
This is your libertine and co-respondent!'

TOPSY (prostrates self on body of SNEAK)

Oh, sir, you have killed my father! Why was this?
I had no life, no being, but in him,
And, now he's not, I am not either. Oh!

HUBERT (kneels beside body of TOPSY)

(Dies of grief. Chord)

PLUM

Oh, Topsy, Topsy, could you not have waited?
I did not think that you would leave me thus,
Without one word nor tender beckoning

To bid me follow you. Yet I will follow,

And make one date of all eternity.

(He strikes self on head with truncheon and dies. Chord)

This was an issue not to be expected.

WITHERS Yet I have heard some countryman remark,
Clapping the swallows from a field of corn,
'It is not seldom, in the course of nature,
After a drought not in light showers only
Falls and descends the gentle rain of heaven,
But in a spate and tempest.'

And the gay trappings of my second youth!
Farewell the music, and, sweet saxophone,
Thou art not music, yet I wish thee well,
With all late suppers and hot gala nights,
The colored streamer and the blue balloon,
Fans, rattles, dolls, and India-rubber dogs,
And wicked kippers eaten in the dawn,
And those fierce rhythmic and delicious tunes
Which light a fever in the veins and set
The feet, the soul, fermenting-fare you well!
Oh, it is selfish in the young to grudge us
The little joys of our declining days!

Have they not Love and Happiness their servants,
And must all Pleasure bow to them as well?
This were ungenerous. And I think in Heaven,
If there be saxophones as well as harps,
They are not only for the young. But here
I shall not see a gala night again.

The snares and dangers of this wicked world,
And nursed you always with a daughter's love.
For you were too much guarded in your youth,
And knew not everything, as we know now,
Who by experience of all temptation
Against temptation are inoculated;

But you, poor innocent, were an easy prey.
The first shrill saxophone that squeaked in London
Was your undoing. And where'er you be,
Whether 't is harps or saxophones or timbrels
That now make mischief in your neighborhood,
You shall not face that music quite alone.

WITHERS Thou too, Lætitia, art thou dead?

(Dies of remorse. Chord)

PLUM

She is.

WITHERS Then there is no more virtue in the world!