Fifty Contemporary One-Act Plays
Chapter 105 : THE POLITE YOUNG MAN. Your pardon! Do you suppose that all a person gets out of this r

THE POLITE YOUNG MAN. Your pardon! Do you suppose that all a person gets out of this remarkable occasion is a good dinner? Have you no appreciation? Do you realize what this day means to all of us?

THE DISAGREEABLE YOUNG MAN. Very well, my boy. Now tell me why you are so over-filled with joy?

THE POLITE YOUNG MAN. Yes, I will. I am glad that I can celebrate the golden wedding of my grandfather. I am glad that just thirty years ago to-day grandfather founded his factory. I am glad because of our large and happy family and that so many lovely and good and happy people have come here to celebrate this remarkable event; all of them good and prosperous.

THE DISAGREEABLE YOUNG MAN. Prosperous!

THE POLITE YOUNG MAN. Yes, I rejoice at their prosperity.

THE DISAGREEABLE YOUNG MAN. The laborers down there in the foundry, however, are not as over-joyed at this prosperity as you are. For this prosperity of yours they have been starving these past thirty years.

THE POLITE YOUNG MAN. Grandfather was always good to his employees.

THE DISAGREEABLE YOUNG MAN. Indeed! Our grandfather has managed by hook or by crook to ama.s.s an enormous fortune and you are glad that his fortune is now made and you do not have to resort to questionable means.

THE POLITE YOUNG MAN [_hurt_]. Questionable means? You do not intend to a.s.sert that our grandpapa....

THE DISAGREEABLE YOUNG MAN. I a.s.sert nothing. But mark you this. There is only one honest way to gain a large fortune: inheriting it. You cannot earn it without resorting to questionable means.

THE POLITE YOUNG MAN. Shame! to say a thing like that!

THE BRUNETTE YOUNG LADY. Shame to say that of grandfather.

[_All of them are upset and disturbed. Grandmother appears on the balcony._]

GRANDMOTHER. Why, children, what is it? What's wrong?

THE SENTIMENTAL HIGH SCHOOL GIRL. Why, grandma, just think of it! Curt said that grandpa made his fortune by questionable means.

THE DISAGREEABLE YOUNG MAN. I did not say exactly that--

THE POLITE YOUNG MAN. Yes, you did.

THE OTHERS [_chiming in_]. You said that. Yes, you said that.

GRANDMOTHER [_as energetically as possible for her_]. I think you are in error, Curt. In the entire fortune of your grandpa there is not a single copper that was not earned by him in the most honest way.

THE DISAGREEABLE YOUNG MAN. But look, grandma,--what I said was--generally in those cases no one--

GRANDMOTHER [_hurt_]. When I tell you this, boy, it _is so_. When I tell you anything, my child, you should never doubt it.

THE DISAGREEABLE YOUNG MAN. Yes, grandma, you are quite right. But I maintain that human learning and experience have proved--

THE POLITE YOUNG MAN. Why don't you stop? Do you perhaps want to insult grandma? You are taking too great an advantage of our good nature--I'll tell you that!

THE DISAGREEABLE YOUNG MAN. If you folks had any sense--

THE POLITE YOUNG MAN. Don't you know enough....

THE OTHER GRANDCHILDREN. ... to shut up. [_Attacks him._] Indeed. He's right. Stop--shut up!

[_The Disagreeable Young Man, in spite of this scene, wants to continue, but the protests of the others drown his voice. He casts a contemptuous look at them, shrugs his shoulders, throws himself on the sofa and begins to read._]

THE POLITE YOUNG MAN. Now don't trouble yourself about him any longer, grandma dear. Here, rest yourself nicely in this chair among us.

THE JOVIAL YOUNG MAN. There, grandma! The old folks are there at table.

We young people are here in the fresh air. We lacked only the youngest one of us all. And here you are.

[_There is a glad a.s.sent as the Grandmother sits down._]

THE VIVACIOUS GIRL. Are you quite comfortable, grandma dear? Would you like something to rest your feet on?

GRANDMOTHER. Thanks, my child, I am quite all right, and I am very happy.

THE BLOND YOUNG LADY. Yes, grandma, you ought to feel happy.

THE BRUNETTE YOUNG LADY. How young you look, and how lovely and rosy!

THE BRIDE. Grandma?

GRANDMOTHER. What is it, my angel?

THE BRIDE. Tell me, how does a woman manage so that she is admired by her husband for full fifty years, as you are by grandfather?

THE BRUNETTE YOUNG LADY. Yes, how did you manage that?

GRANDMOTHER. You will all be loved and admired after fifty years as I have been. A person must be good. We must love each other.

THE POLITE YOUNG MAN. But, grandmother, is it not wonderful at seventy and seventy-five to love so beautifully and purely as you and grandfather have loved?

GRANDMOTHER. You must always be good and patient with each other, and brave. Never lose courage.

THE VIVACIOUS GIRL. But look, grandma, not even I could be as brave as you have been. And no one can ever say that I lose courage. [_They all laugh._] I still shudder when I think how in those days in March of Forty-eight you had to run away! Or in the Sixties when the city was bombarded, you with my mamma and Aunt Olga escaped from the burning house....

THE SENTIMENTAL HIGH SCHOOL GIRL. How interesting that was! Tell us another story, grandma. [_There is loud a.s.sent._] Yes, yes, grandma shall tell us another story!

GRANDMOTHER. But I have already told you so much. You heard all our history.

THE SENTIMENTAL HIGH SCHOOL GIRL. Not I, grandma; I have not heard the story of when you got lost in the _Friedrichsrode_ forest.

GRANDMOTHER. That story I have told you so often, children. Ask your mother about it; she'll tell you.

THE POLITE YOUNG MAN. But, grandma, I haven't heard it, either. Just tell us that one and we'll go to play tennis.

THE DISAGREEABLE YOUNG MAN. If you'll pardon me, grandma, I believe you ought to tell us a different incident to-day. I've heard that history so often. Tell us something contemporaneous. Tell us about the first sewing machine, or the first railroad, or about crinolines or contemporary theater or art.

THE BLOND YOUNG LADY. No. Tell us about the woods.

THE OTHERS. Yes, yes, that's right,--the story of how you got lost.