"Ah! There, Fair Lady!"

JULIAN FRANCIS THOMPSON

An Ancient Adventure, Which Should Be a Warning to All Fashionable Women Friends

The First Episode

IN the lounge of the Driving, Pitching and Putting Club, on Fifth Avenue. Looking into the club, front the sidewalk on the Avenue, one can see, behind a huge plate glass window, two enormous black leather chairs. Each is occupied by a Gentleman reclining on the back of his neck. One is an American Gentleman. The other is an English Gentleman. The Englishman, having arrived in this country with a letter of introduction to the American, has just been treated to an expensive luncheon by the American, and, for the last two hours they have been sitting in the leather chairs, resting their digestive organs. The Englishman wears a loosely woven suit of Arran tweed which looks as if it had been especially mussed before he put it on. In spite of this, he appears better dressed than the American, in a perfectly tailored and faultlessly pressed American suit. The American realizes this fact, and is writhing in his chair and chewing his boutonniere in exasperation. Any type of revenge would be succulent to him. Each is horribly bored with the other. Neither can remember the other's name—and neither cares. The conversation has become so maudlin, and the boredom so extreme, that the American has begun to divert himself by seeing how big a story the Englishman will swallow. They are now chatting about American customs.

The Englishman: Really! Extraordinary! I had no idea!

The American: Oh, yes, we're much more free and easy in this country. We allow our women more liberties than you do. For example—we don't consider introductions to them necessary.

The Englishman: No?

The American: No! (making a good one out of it) In New York, for instance, if you see, on the street, some woman whose looks you like, you can walk right up and talk to her. The Englishman: Not a lady?

The American: Certainly. It's a custom of the country.

The Englishman: Remarkable! I had no idea! How did you say one does it?

The American: Oh, it's perfectly simple. Just walk up to her and say: "Ah! there, fair lady!"

The Englishman: Just walk up and say: "Ah! there, fair lady?" By Jove! What will she do then?

The American: Oh, probably ask you to drop in at her apartment for a cup of tea.

The Englishman (positively astounded): No, really?

The American (in full cry): And, if she likes you very much—well—er— Have another cigar, won't you ?

The Englishman: Thanks. But what are the men of America thinking of? They can't tell what—er—their sister or wives—you know what I mean. You can't trust all of your men, you know!

The American (very dignified): Ah no! But we Americans can trust all of our women!

The Englishman (rises): Extraordinary.— Well, I must be trotting. Awfully good of you. (He pauses.) Er—you mean to say I could go right out there, on the Avenue, and speak to any girl I happened to fancy?

The American: Oh, well, perhaps not in this section. This part of the city is too cosmopolitan; almost continental; too blase. But the nice average New York girls don't object at all.

The Englishman: But where does one find them?

The American: Well, I'll tell you. Go up to any street in the Seventies, on the West Side.

The Englishman: Oh, well, I dare say, I sha'n't try it at all. (He is going.)

The American: The best way to get there is by the subway, to the West Side.

The Englishman: I should get lost! And, besides, I have no intention of doing it, anyway— Well, thanks again. Awfully good of you— Jolly good luncheon. (He goes.)

The American (ponders, smiles, and then decides that he must go to the club library, wake up some of the members and tell them about the bright boy Briton.)

The Second Episode

PARK AVENUE. In front of the entrance to one of our most fashionable apartment houses, in the Seventies, but on the East Side! Down a side street, can be seen a subway station, and, just rounding the corner into Park Avenue comes our Englishman. His walk is alert, as if ready for an encounter with one of those unconventional American women. One or two ladies pass by, looking straight ahead of them. He has not the courage to accost them. Besides, they are not particularly beautiful. Suddenly, a limousine sweeps up to the entrance of the apartment house. From its upholstered depths emerges a vision of loveliness. She is his ideal of womanly beauty. She leaps out with the grace of Diana. Under her arm, and upside down, she carries a glassy eyed Pekinese. The limousine whisks away, and the lady starts to enter the apartment house.

The Englishman (sees his chance and approaches her rapidly, with his most ingratiating manner): Ah! there, fair lady!

The Fair Lady (pauses and looks at him dubiously): How do you do? Oh, I beg your pardon. There must be some mistake. I'm afraid I dont know you.

The Englishman: What a thing to be afraid of! Of course you don't! I've only been in this country a few days and haven't met a lady of any sort.

The Fair Lady (who has a weakness for Englishmen, and who finds this one artless, and decidedly like a gentlemen): Are you an Englishman ?

The Englishman: I am!

The Fair Lady: Then, of course, you're a gentleman.

The Englishman: If Bernard Shaw could only have heard you say that! You're wonderful !

The Fair Lady: And are English gentlemen in the habit of speaking to ladies whom they have never met?

The Englishman: But I was told, at a club, that it was being done over here.

The Fair Lady: Who told you that?

The Englishman: Why, a chap I lunched with at the Driving, Pitching and Putting Club.

The Fair Lady: Really! Just what did he tell you?

The Englishman: Oh, he told me that it was quite correct for a man to make friends with any nice American girl, up here in the Seventies. So I immediately plunged into the subway and have just this moment come to the surface. He said you'd probably ask me in to tea. Was he spoofing? Isn't it true? I'm terribly sorry if it isn't. Had I better go?

The Fair Lady (is now looking far beyond him as if dreamily trying to remember a poem she has known in the past. Something that went:

"La vie est breve.

Un peu d'espoir,

Un peu de reve,

Et puis,—bon soir!"):

Oh, I simply can't stand here in front of my apartment talking to a total stranger!

The Englishman (embarrassed): No, of course not. I'm awfully sorry!

The Fair Lady (looks at her delicate wrist watch. She seems to hesitate. The Pekinese is hanging, head downward, stoically blowing bubbles. Then she speaks): It was stupid of you to ride in the subway. People catch the most frightful diseases there. You had better come up to my apartment. Tea is waiting.

The Curtain, thunderstruck at her audacity, falls suddenly.

The Third Episode

A CHARMING sitting room in a Park Avenue apartment. On the left, a little fireplace in which real logs of wood, four inches long are burning. A luxurious couch faces the fireplace, and a tea-cart, appetizingly prepared for duty, is close at hand. Above the hearth on the mantelpiece, is a graceful enamelled clock. On the right is the entrance door of the apartment, which now responds to a latch key from without. The Fair Lady enters, followed by the English Gentleman. She deposits the Pekinese, bottom side up, on a cushion beside the hearth. He rights himself with dignity.

The Fair Lady: Ah, the tea awaits us. (They laughingly settle down on the couch before the fire as she starts to pour the tea.) Well, here we are, two total strangers, with absolutely nothing in common.

The Englishman: We have the most beautiful of all things in common,—Romance!

The Fair Lady (abruptly): Do you take sugar in your tea?

The Englishman: Oh, er—yes. Thanks awfully.

The Fair Lady (back on safe ground): What else did this amazing gentleman tell you about our customs?

The Englishman: He said that when I got to her apartment if she liked me, really liked me. You know, she would—er— Two lumps, please.

The Fair Lady (hands him his tea): There! I am never afraid of a man when he has a tea cup in one hand and a slice of buttered toast in the other.

The Englishman: You know that this is almost incredible. If I had discovered you— cantering past in Hyde Park—or, perhaps in the dim light of an entr'acte at the Théâtre des Capucines—or on the rocks at Cap Martin, watching the sunset over the purple Mediterranean,— but on one of these impersonal Avenues in practical New York—incredible! Of course that chap who told me all those things about your customs was a wag, wasn't he!

(Continued on page 82)

(Continued from page 34)

The Fair Lady (seems very absorbed in preparations for her own tea): Was he? So far, everything has happened as he prophesied, hasn't it?

The Englishman (puts down his tea and toast, on the table, leans slowly toward her and takes her hand in his): And a ripping good prophesy, too. Do you know, dear lady, that, if you really liked me, you'd . . .

(At this point a latch key is heard in the door. She starts, terrified.)

The Fair Lady: Heavens! My husband has come home to tea.

The Englishman (leaps to his feet): Ye gods! What'll we do?

The Fair Lady: You're the man who's come to mend the clock! Quick! There, on the mantel, stupid! (She quickly picks up his cup, steps aside, and starts drinking the tea in it as the door opens and her husband enters. She looks up calmly.) Well, it's about time you put in an appearance.

The Husband: Hello! Started tea?

The Fair Lady: Yes,—waited half an hour for you and got famished.

The Husband (sees the back of the man who has opened the glass face of the clock and is pretending to wind it): Oh, who's our friend?

The Fair Lady: The man who came to mend the clock. The thing's been keeping frightful hours of late,—almost as frightful as yours.

The Husband: Hum! (He walks over to the Englishman and looks his back up and down. The Englishman pushes the minute hand to the hour, and the clock strikes five with horrible deliberation. When it has ceased the clock mender turns around.)

The Husband (after a pause, and in some amazement): I thought I told you to go over to the West Side!

The Pekinese sighs, blows another bubble, and the Curtain, as if in mercy, falls for the last time.