"BACHELOR APARTMENT TO LET"

A Little Lovers' Quarrel Among Three Lovers

NIB

The scene is a discreet little New York flat with that messy appearance which proclaims bachelordom. Harry is showing his good friend Bertram over the premises.

HARRY: You'll like it I know. It's just what a man wants, living alone . . . Broad-minded management! . . . Elevator runs like a brook! . . . And there's a private stairway!

BERTRAM (stiffly): That hardly interests me. I'm after seclusion. I shall never care for another woman.

HARRY: All right, no better hermitage if you went with the Trappists. Only I've been so c'nfounded happy here that I just mention these things. The freedom! The delightful uncertainties! (Giving way to reveries) Will she come; was she bluffing? . . . No! It's too late now! She's not coming! . . By Jove, there she is! And book orgies! . . In a tobacco trance! Maupassant! Turgenev Nothing to call you back to life but the dawn What a life! What a life.

BERTRAM: If you find it such a paradise I wonder you want to give it up.

HARRY (sobering): That's just it You see, confound it, I'm going to be married. There's no room here for a woman's millinery: one Tappe box and there goes your dining-room. So, I've taken a house. Signed the lease to-day.

(He pulls a paper from his pocket and surveys it gloomily.) It was all very sudden. Off my feet before I realized. What do you think of it?

BERTRAM: This place? Oh, it'll do for a cave. I'll have the Stairway boarded up and the telephone disconn . . .

HARRY: NO, marriage, I mean. Now, I oughtn't to mind pulling up here, ought I? And yet! Do you— (anxiously) do you advise it?

BERTRAM (explosive):Me? Marriage? Ha! ha! Do I advise perdition? Do I recommend suicide? However (recovering) you must know your own mind.

And if you're pledged to the woman . . .

HARRY : Exactly. And what a woman! strange woman, Miss Page!

BERTRAM: Page? The devil!

HARRY (astonished): Excuse me, but you're speaking of my future wife . . .

Involuntarily he glances at a portrait over the mantel. Bertram'seyes follow. He stares, petrified.

BERTRAM(choking): Do you mean to tell me that that Semirimis ... I mean to say has that Octopus . . . that is, has Hattie Page . . .

HARRY : Look here! Did you come here to look for a flat? Or are you looking for sudden death? Your insults to this lady . . .

He makes a sudden move toward Bertram.

But the latter has collapsed into a chair.

BERTRAM: A thousand pardons! I'm behaving like a cad! Fact is I didn't know what I was saying. But if you knew the shock . . .

A ring at the door at this moment averts bloodshed. Harryanswers, and a lady floats in. Young, beautiful, saintess-like type of trouble-maker.

HARRY: Ah, Hattie, how d'ye do! Just . . . er . . . thinking of you. Heavenly visits, what?

HATTIE(in a hurry): Everything's quite correct here, I hope, darling. No visitors! I'm bringing a man, a friend—Frank, his name is, who says he'll take your flat. He's a young minister at St. George's. While he's getting change from the driver of the taxi I thought I'd fly up here and . . .

HARRY: Excuse me, the bell. (Exit.)

(Hattie turns and discovers Bertram.)

HATTIE: Why, Bertram, you here! I thought you were . . . shooting mountain goats or something?

BERTRAM: I was. I am.

HATTIE: On Long Island, wasn't it? Well, remembering your conduct to me I can't wonder at your cruelty to mere . . . mere mountain goats.

BERTRAM: Thanks! After displaying the sweet consideration of a cobra . . . after flirting . . . ye gods! whom didn't you flirt with! . . . it's quite like you to accuse me . . .

HATTIE(all purr and all honey): But you didn't understand. It was only because I was afraid of caring for you too, too much. Women are so weak! And then that last, last quarrel . . . when you didn't come back! . . . I was so unh-a-a-ppy . . . (Her voice breaks.)

BERTRAM(becoming putty, as of old): But you knew I couldn't change, didn't you? And now, think of our meeting here! Think of the millions of flats to let in New York! I might have gone to all of 'em and missed you. It's Fate! Even now we might . . . that is' . . . mightn't we? (He looks at her, and is lost! They kiss—a moving-picture kiss.)

HARRY(entering suddenly): Charming surprise, this! But would you mind telling me, Hattie, whom do you propose to marry ... me or this monastery-yearning friend of yours.

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Continued, from page 75

If the latter I just want to say . . .

BERTRAM : Miss Page and I have been temporarily estranged but as Destiny has reunited us and as she, Miss Page, that is, realizes that it was all her fault . . .

HATTIE (suddenly bristling):

I beg your pardon!

BERTRAM : And as I am willing to forgive her, knowing her weakness . . .

HATTIE : Well! Of all the priggish, supercil . . .

BERTRAM : Didn't you admit as much? Didn't you tell me, once, that your character was about as strong as tepid Perrier water ?

Didn't you . . .

HARRY (strategic - pacifist):

Hold on. I abject to these aspersions. I've been engaged to Miss Page for some time . . .

It's fully two weeks, isn't it, Hattie? And let me tell you that if a man took out his marriage license inside the Pearly Gates he'd not get such a wife! What an affinity—for a patient man!

HATTIE : Dear Harry.

HARRY: Yes, and I refuse to stand in the way of two people who are plainly made for each other as you are. (Satirical dissent from Bertram and Hattie.)

So, I'm out. Bless you, my children ! Look here, Bertram, you can have my wedding outfit, rice, gardenia, honeymoon, suite at Lenox, wedding presents, grandfather's clocks—the whole business.

BERTRAM : Awfully good of you. But I'm not sure that Miss Page's temperament . . .

HATTIE: And I'm quite sure that this . . . this person's nasty, nagging nature . . .

HARRY (blandly unheeding): There's only one little detail . . . the house.

BERTRAM: The house? What house?

HARRY : The house in Sixty-third Street. I've just leased it under the impression that it was I who was to marry Miss Page. Surely you don't expect to carry off the lady and leave me with the lease on my hands? Would you, my dear Bertram, mind signing? No, ah, good. There . . . and there. Thanks so much. It's a charming little house, really; such a lovely back yard, fountain and trees. (He spreads out the document and forces a pen into the flabbergastedBERTRAM'Shand.)

BERTRAM: Well, I'll be . . . {Hesitates; then, in desperation, signs, and starts for the door.) Come along, Hattie. Your fiance is right. We'll be married at once and have it over with.

HATTIE : Splendid! And, I say, why not collar my friend Frank, the parson? I hear him coming now.

HARRY: Splendid! And, look here, you might tell him that this little flat is no longer in the market. (Enter Frank, the good young parson.)

HATTIE: Come here, Frank, we need you, every hour.

FRANK : I am at a loss to understand. Is this the apartment? How far would you call it to my church?

HATTIE: Oh, it's quite useless, Frank, after all. The apartment is not for rent. Mr. Gray has changed his mind.

Exit the unhappy trio, Hattie ^ looking daggers, Bertram trying to appear as if the whole thing were his idea. The minister is plainly nonplussed. As the door closes Harry executes a few ecstatic steps, contrives certain hasty changes in the arrangement of the feminine portraits in the room, and finally settles into a big leather chair with a paper, a pipe, and all the proper accompaniments of bliss.

HARRY (making smoke rings) : Marriage . . . What a thought! What a terrible, soul-wrecking thought! After all (reaching for the siphon and the bottle immediately behind him), this is the life.