The Dreamers: A Club

’N’ ’at is why to-day, by Jings!
I don’t fool with hearts an’ things.

I don’t care how high the bids,
I’ve stopped scribblin’ ’bout dead kids;

’R if I haven’t, kinder sorter
Think ’at maybe p’r’aps I’d oughter.

The lines were received with hearty appreciation by all save Dobbs Ferry, who looked a trifle gloomy.

“It is a strange thing,” said the latter, “but that mince-pie affected me in precisely the same way, as you will see for yourselves when I read my contribution, which, holding ball number four as I do, I will proceed to give you.”

Mr. Ferry then read the following poem, which certainly did seem to indicate that the man who prepared the fatal pie had certain literary ideas which he mixed in with other ingredients:

I bought a book of verse the other day,
And when I read, it filled me with dismay.

I wanted it to take home to my wife,
To bring a bit of joy into her life;

And I’d been told the author of those pomes
Was called the laureate of simple homes.

But, Jove! I read, and found it full of rhyme
That kept my eyes a-filling all the time.

One told about a pretty little miss
Whose father had denied a simple kiss,

And as she left, unhappy, full of cares,
She fell and broke her neck upon the stairs.

And then he wrote a lot of tearful lines
Of children who had trouble with their spines;

And ’stead of joys, he penned so many woes
I sought him out and gave him curvature ’f the nose;

And all the nation, witnessing his plight,
Did crown me King, and cry, “It served him right.”

“A remarkable coincidence,” said Thomas Snobbe. “In fact, the coincidence is rather more remarkable than the poetry.”

“It certainly is,” said Billie Jones; “but what a wonderfully suggestive pie, considering that it was a mince!”

After which dictum the presiding officer called upon the holder of the fifth ball, who turned out to be none other than Bedford Parke, who blushingly rose up and delivered himself of what he called “The Overcoat, a Magazine Farce.”

IV

BEING THE CONTRIBUTION OF MR. BEDFORD PARKE

THE OVERCOAT

A FARCE. IN TWO SCENES

SCENE FIRST

Time: Morning at Boston

Mrs. Robert Edwards. “I think it will rain to-day, but there is no need to worry about that. Robert has his umbrella and his mackintosh, and I don’t think he is idiotic enough to lend both of them. If he does, he’ll get wet, that’s all.” Mrs. Edwards is speaking to herself in the sewing-room of the apartment occupied by herself and her husband in the Hotel Hammingbell at Boston. It is not a large room, but cosey. A frieze one foot deep runs about the ceiling, and there is a carpet on the floor. Three pins are seen scattered about the room, in one corner of which is a cane-bottomed chair holding across its back two black vests and a cutaway coat. Mrs. Edwards sits before a Wilcox & Wilson sewing-machine sewing a button on a light spring overcoat. The overcoat has one outside and three inside pockets, and is single-breasted. “It is curious,” Mrs. Edwards continues, “what men will do with umbrellas and mackintoshes on a rainy day. They lend them here and there, and the worst part of it is they never remember where.” A knock is heard at the door. “Who’s there?”

Voice (without). “Me.”

Mrs. Robert Edwards (with a nervous shudder). “Come in.” Enter Mary the house-maid. She is becomingly attired in blue alpaca, with green ribbons and puffed sleeves. She holds a feather duster in her right hand, and in her left is a jar of Royal Worcester. “Mary,” Mrs. Edwards says, severely, “where are we at?”

Mary (meekly). “Boston, ma’am.”

Mrs. Robert Edwards. “South Boston or Boston proper?”