Джек Лондон
Theft: A Play In Four Acts
Mrs. Dowsett
(Sympathetically.) Yes, I know, a man of such large affairs. He must have so much on his mind. He is a wonderful man – my husband says the greatest in contemporary history – more powerful than a dozen presidents, the King of England, and the Kaiser, all rolled into one.
(Servant enters with tea urn and accessories, and Connie proceeds to serve tea, all accompanied by appropriate patter – "Two lumps?" "One, please." "Lemon;" etc.)
(Rutland and Dowsett come forward to table for their tea, where they remain.)
(Connie, glancing apprehensively across at her father and debating a moment, prepares a cup for him and a small plate with crackers, and hands them to Dowsett, who likewise betrays apprehensiveness.)
Connie
Take it to father, please, senator.
(Note: – Throughout the rest of this act, Starkweather is like a being apart, a king sitting on his throne. He divides the tea function with Margaret. Men come up to him and speak with him. He sends for men. They come and go at his bidding. The whole attitude, perhaps unconsciously on his part, is that wherever he may be he is master. This attitude is accepted by all the others; forsooth, he is indeed a great man and master. The only one who is not really afraid of him is Margaret; yet she gives in to him in so far as she lets him do as he pleases at her afternoon tea.) (Dowsett carries the cup of tea and small plate across stage to Starkweather. Starkweather does not notice him at first.)
Connie
(Who has been watching.) Tea, father, won't you have a cup of tea?
(Through the following scene between Starkweather and Dowsett, the latter holds cup of tea and crackers, helplessly, at a disadvantage. At the same time Rutland is served with tea and remains at the table, talking with the two women.)
Starkweather
(Looking first at Connie, then peering into cup of tea. He grunts refusal, and for the first time looks up into the other man's face. He immediately closes note-book down on finger to keep the place.) Oh, it's you. Dowsett.
(Painfully endeavoring to be at ease.) A pleasure, Mr. Starkweather, an entirely unexpected pleasure to meet you here. I was not aware you frequented frivolous gatherings of this nature.
Starkweather
(Abruptly and peremptorily.) Why didn't you come when you were sent for this morning?
Dowsett
I was sick – I was in bed.
Starkweather
That is no excuse, sir. When you are sent for you are to come. Understand? That bill was reported back. Why was it reported back? You told Dobleman you would attend to it.
Dowsett
It was a slip up. Such things will happen.
Starkweather
What was the matter with that committee? Have you no influence with the Senate crowd? If not, say so, and I'll get some one who has.
Dowsett
(Angrily.) I refuse to be treated in this manner, Mr. Starkweather. I have some self-respect —
(Starkweather grunts incredulously.) Some decency —
(Starkweather grunts.) A position of prominence in my state. You forget, sir, that in our state organization I occupy no mean place.
Starkweather
(Cutting him off so sharply that Dowsett drops cup and saucer.) Don't you show your teeth to me. I can make you or break you. That state organization of yours belongs to me.
(Dowsett starts – he is learning something new. To hide his feelings, he stoops to pick up cup and saucer.) Let it alone! I am talking to you.
(Dowsett straightens up to attention with alacrity.) (Connie, who has witnessed, rings for Servant.) I bought that state organization, and paid for it. You are one of the chattels that came along with the machine. You were made senator to obey my orders. Understand? Do you understand?
Dowsett
(Beaten.) I – I understand.
Starkweather
That bill is to be killed.
Dowsett
Yes, sir.
Starkweather
Quietly, no headlines about it.
(Dowsett nods.) Now you can go.
(Dowsett proceeds rather limply across to join group at tea-table.) (Chalmers and Hubbard enter from right, laughing about something. At sight of Starkweather they immediately become sober.) (No hands are shaken. Starkweather barely acknowledges Hubbard's greeting.)
Starkweather
Tom, I want to see you.
(Hubbard takes his cue, and proceeds across to tea-table.)
(Enter Servant. Connie directs him to remove broken cup and saucer. While this is being done, Starkweather remains silent. He consults note-book, and Chalmers stands, not quite at ease, waiting the other's will. At the same time, patter at tea-table. Hubbard, greeting others and accepting or declining cup of tea.)
(Servant makes exit).
Starkweather
(Closing finger on book and looking sharply at Chalmers.) Tom, this affair of yours in New York must come to an end. Understand?
Chalmers
(Starting.) Hubbard has been talking.
Starkweather
No, it is not Hubbard. I have the reports from other sources.
Chalmers
It is a harmless affair.
Starkweather
I happen to know better. I have the whole record. If you wish, I can give you every detail, every meeting. I know. There is no discussion whatever. I want no more of it.
Chalmers
I never dreamed for a moment that I was – er – indiscreet.
Starkweather
Never forget that every indiscretion of a man in your position is indiscreet. We have a duty, a great and solemn duty to perform. Upon our shoulders rest the destinies of ninety million people. If we fail in our duty, they go down to destruction. Ignorant demagogues are working on the beast-passions of the people. If they have their way, they are lost, the country is lost, civilization is lost. We want no more Dark Ages.
Chalmers
Really, I never thought it was as serious as all that.
Starkweather
(Shrugging shoulders and lifting eyebrows.) After all, why should you? You are only a cog in the machine. I, and the several men grouped with me, am the machine. You are a useful cog – too useful to lose —
Chalmers
Lose? – Me?
Starkweather
I have but to raise my hand, any time – do you understand? – any time, and you are lost. You control your state. Very well. But never forget that to-morrow, if I wished, I could buy your whole machine out from under you. I know you cannot change yourself, but, for the sake of the big issues at stake, you must be careful, exceedingly careful. We are compelled to work with weak tools. You are a good liver, a flesh-pot man. You drink too much. Your heart is weak. – Oh, I have the report of your doctor. Nevertheless, don't make a fool of yourself, nor of us. Besides, do not forget that your wife is my daughter. She is a strong woman, a credit to both of us. Be careful that you are not a discredit to her.
Chalmers
All right, I'll be careful. But while we are – er – on this subject, there's something I'd like to speak to you about.
(A pause, in which Starkweather waits non-committally.) It's this man Knox, and Madge. He comes to the house. They are as thick as thieves.
Starkweather
Yes?
Chalmers
(Hastily.) Oh, not a breath of suspicion or anything of that sort, I assure you. But it doesn't strike me as exactly appropriate that your daughter and my wife should be friendly with this fire-eating anarchist who is always attacking us and all that we represent.
Starkweather
I started to speak with her on that subject, but was interrupted.
(Puckers brow and thinks.) You are her husband. Why don't you take her in hand yourself?
(Enters Mrs. Starkweather from rear, looking about, bowing, then locating Starkweather and proceeding toward him.)
Chalmers
What can I do? She has a will of her own – the same sort of a will that you have. Besides, I think she knows about my – about some of my – indiscretions.
Starkweather
(Slyly.)
Harmless indiscretions?
(Chalmers is about to reply, but observes Mrs. Starkweather approaching.)
Mrs. Starkweather
(Speaks in a peevish, complaining voice, and during her harrangue Starkweather immerses himself in notebook.) Oh, there you are, Anthony. Talking politics, I suppose. Well, as soon as I get a cup of tea we must go. Tommy is not looking as well as I could wish. Margaret loves him, but she does not take the right care of him. I don't know what the world is coming to when mothers do not know how to rear their offspring. There is Margaret, with her slum kindergartens, taking care of everybody else's children but her own. If she only performed her church duties as eagerly! Mr. Rutland is displeased with her. I shall give her a talking to – only, you'd better do it, Anthony. Somehow, I have never counted much with Margaret. She is as set in doing what she pleases as you are. In my time children paid respect to their parents. This is what comes of speed. There is no time for anything. And now I must get my tea and run. Connie has to dress for that dinner.
(Mrs. Starkweather crosses to table, greets others characteristically and is served with tea by Connie.)
(Chalmers waits respectfully on Starkweather.)
Starkweather
(Looking up from note-book.) That will do, Tom.
(Chalmers is just starting across to join others, when voices are heard outside rear entrance, and Margaret enters with Dolores Ortega, wife of the Peruvian Minister, and Matsu Sakari, Secretary of Japanese Legation – both of whom she has met as they were entering the house.)
(Chalmers changes his course, and meets the above advancing group. He knows Dolores Ortega, whom he greets, and is introduced to Sakari.)
(Margaret passes on among guests, greeting them, etc. Then she displaces Connie at tea-table and proceeds to dispense tea to the newcomers.)
(Groups slowly form and seat themselves about stage as follows: Chalmers and Dolores Ortega; Rutland, Dowsett, Mrs. Starkweather; Connie, Mr. Dowsett, and Hubbard.)
(Chalmers carries tea to Dolores Ortega.)
(Sakari has been lingering by table, waiting for tea and pattering with Margaret, Chalmers, etc.)
Margaret
(Handing cup to Sakari.) I am very timid in offering you this, for I am sure you must be appalled by our barbarous methods of making tea.
Sakari
(Bowing.) It is true, your American tea, and the tea of the English, are quite radically different from the tea in my country. But one learns, you know. I served my apprenticeship to American tea long years ago, when I was at Yale. It was perplexing, I assure you – at first, only at first I really believe that I am beginning to have a – how shall I call it? – a tolerance for tea in your fashion.
Margaret
You are very kind in overlooking our shortcomings.
Sakari
(Bowing.) On the contrary, I am unaware, always unaware, of any shortcomings of this marvelous country of yours.
Margaret
(Laughing.) You are incorrigibly gracious, Mr. Sakari. (Knox appears at threshold of rear entrance and pauses irresolutely for a moment)
Sakari
(Noticing Knox, and looking about him to select which group he will join.) If I may be allowed, I shall now retire and consume this – tea.
(Joins group composed of Connie, Mrs. Dowsett, and Hubbard.)
(Knox comes forward to Margaret, betraying a certain awkwardness due to lack of experience in such social functions. He greets Margaret and those in the group nearest her.)
Knox
(To Margaret.) I don't know why I come here. I do not belong. All the ways are strange.
Margaret
(Lightly, at the same time preparing his tea.) The same Ali Baba – once again in the den of the forty thieves. But your watch and pocket-book are safe here, really they are.
(Knox makes a gesture of dissent at her facetiousness.) Now don't be serious. You should relax sometimes. You live too tensely.
(Looking at Starkweather.) There's the arch-anarch over there, the dragon you are trying to slay.
(Knox looks at Starkweather and is plainly perplexed.) The man who handles all the life insurance funds, who controls more strings of banks and trust companies than all the Rothschilds a hundred times over – the merger of iron and steel and coal and shipping and all the other things – the man who blocks your child labor bill and all the rest of the remedial legislation you advocate. In short, my father.
Knox
(Looking intently at Starkweather.) I should have recognized him from his photographs. But why do you say such things?
Margaret
Because they are true.
(He remains silent.) Now, aren't they? (She laughs.) Oh, you don't need to answer. You know the truth, the whole bitter truth. This is a den of thieves. There is Mr. Hubbard over there, for instance, the trusty journalist lieutenant of the corporations.
Knox
(With an expression of disgust.) I know him. It was he that wrote the Standard Oil side of the story, after having abused Standard Oil for years in the pseudo-muck-raking magazines. He made them come up to his price, that was all. He's the star writer on Cartwright's, now, since that magazine changed its policy and became subsidizedly reactionary. I know him – a thoroughly dishonest man. Truly am I Ali Baba, and truly I wonder why I am here.
Margaret
You are here, sir, because I like you to come.
Knox
We do have much in common, you and I.
Margaret
The future.
Knox
(Gravely, looking at her with shining eyes.) I sometimes fear for more immediate reasons than that.
(Margaret looks at him in alarm, and at the same time betrays pleasure in what he has said.) For you.
Margaret
(Hastily.) Don't look at me that way. Your eyes are flashing. Some one might see and misunderstand.
Knox
(In confusion, awkwardly.) I was unaware that I – that I was looking at you – in any way that —
Margaret
I'll tell you why you are here. Because I sent for you.
Knox
(With signs of ardor.) I would come whenever you sent for me, and go wherever you might send me.
Margaret
(Reprovingly.)
Please, please – It was about that speech. I have been hearing about it from everybody – rumblings and mutterings and dire prophecies. I know how busy you are, and I ought not to have asked you to come. But there was no other way, and I was so anxious.
Knox
(Pleased.) It seems so strange that you, being what you are, affiliated as you are, should be interested in the welfare of the common people.
Margaret
(Judicially.) I do seem like a traitor in my own camp. But as father said a while ago, I, too, have dreamed my dream. I did it as a girl – Plato's Republic, Moore's Utopia– I was steeped in all the dreams of the social dreamers.
(During all that follows of her speech, Knox is keenly interested, his eyes glisten and he hangs on her words.)
And I dreamed that I, too, might do something to bring on the era of universal justice and fair play. In my heart I dedicated myself to the cause of humanity. I made Lincoln my hero-he still is. But I was only a girl, and where was I to find this cause? – how to work for it? I was shut in by a thousand restrictions, hedged in by a thousand conventions. Everybody laughed at me when I expressed the thoughts that burned in me. What could I do? I was only a woman. I had neither vote nor right of utterance. I must remain silent. I must do nothing. Men, in their lordly wisdom, did all. They voted, orated, governed. The place for women was in the home, taking care of some lordly man who did all these lordly things.
Knox
You understand, then, why I am for equal suffrage.
Margaret
But I learned – or thought I learned. Power, I discovered early. My father had power. He was a magnate – I believe that is the correct phrase. Power was what I needed. But how? I was a woman. Again I dreamed my dream – a modified dream. Only by marriage could I win to power. And there you have the clew to me and what I am and have become. I met the man who was to become my husband. He was clean and strong and an athlete, an outdoor man, a wealthy man and a rising politician. Father told me that if I married him he would make him the power of his state, make him governor, send him to the United States Senate. And there you have it all.
Knox
Yes? – Yes?
Margaret
I married. I found that there were greater forces at work than I had ever dreamed of. They took my husband away from me and molded him into the political lieutenant of my father. And I was without power. I could do nothing for the cause. I was beaten. Then it was that I got a new vision. The future belonged to the children. There I could play my woman's part. I was a mother. Very well. I could do no better than to bring into the world a healthy son and bring him up to manhood healthy and wholesome, clean, noble, and alive. Did I do my part well, through him the results would be achieved. Through him would the work of the world be done in making the world healthier and happier for all the human creatures in it. I played the mother's part. That is why I left the pitiful little charities of the church and devoted myself to settlement work and tenement house reform, established my kindergartens, and worked for the little men and women who come so blindly and to whom the future belongs to make or mar.
Knox
You are magnificent. I know, now, why I come when you bid me come.
Margaret
And then you came. You were magnificent. You were my knight of the windmills, tilting against all power and privilege, striving to wrest the future from the future and realize it here in the present, now. I was sure you would be destroyed. Yet you are still here and fighting valiantly. And that speech of yours to-morrow —
Chalmers
(Who has approached, bearing Dolores Ortega's cup.) Yes, that speech. How do you do, Mr. Knox.
(They shake hands.) A cup of tea, Madge. For Mrs. Ortega. Two lumps, please.
(Margaret prepares the cup of tea.) Everybody is excited over that speech. You are going to give us particular fits, to-morrow, I understand.
Knox
(Smiling.) Really, no more than is deserved.
Chalmers
The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Knox
Precisely.
(Receiving back cup of tea from Margaret.)
Chalmers
Believe me, we are not so black as we're painted. There are two sides to this question. Like you, we do our best to do what is right. And we hope, we still hope, to win you over to our side.
(Knox shakes his head with a quiet smile.)
Margaret
Oh, Tom, be truthful. You don't hope anything of the sort. You know you are hoping to destroy him.
Chalmers
(Smiling grimly.) That is what usually happens to those who are not won over.
(Preparing to depart with cup of tea; speaking to Knox.) You might accomplish much good, were you with us. Against us you accomplish nothing, absolutely nothing.
(Returns to Dolores Ortega.)
Margaret
(Hurriedly.) You see. That is why I was anxious – why I sent for you. Even Tom admits that they who are not won over are destroyed. This speech is a crucial event. You know how rigidly they rule the House and gag men like you. It is they, and they alone, who have given you opportunity for this speech? Why? – Why?
Knox
(Smiling confidently.) I know their little scheme. They have heard my charges. They think I am going to make a firebrand speech, and they are ready to catch me without the proofs. They are ready in every way for me. They are going to laugh me down. The Associated Press, the Washington correspondents – all are ready to manufacture, in every newspaper in the land, the great laugh that will destroy me. But I am fully prepared, I have —
Margaret
The proofs?
Knox
Yes.
Margaret
Now?
Knox
They will be delivered to me to-night – original documents, photographs of documents, affidavits —
Margaret
Tell me nothing. But oh, do be careful! Be careful!
Mrs. Dowsett
(Appealing to Margaret.) Do give me some assistance, Mrs. Chalmers.
(Indicating Sakari.) Mr. Sakari is trying to make me ridiculous.
Margaret
Impossible.
Mrs. Dowsett
But he is. He has had the effrontery —
Chalmers
(Mimicking Mrs. Dowsett.) Effrontery! – O, Sakari!
Sakari
The dear lady is pleased to be facetious.
Mrs. Dowsett
He has had the effrontery to ask me to explain the cause of high prices. Mr. Dowsett says the reason is that the people are living so high.
Sakari
Such a marvelous country. They are poor because they have so much to spend.
Chalmers
Are not high prices due to the increased output of gold?
Mrs. Dowsett
Mr. Sakari suggested that himself, and when I agreed with him he proceeded to demolish it. He has treated me dreadfully.
Rutland
(Clearing his throat and expressing himself with ponderous unction.) You will find the solution in the drink traffic. It is liquor, alcohol, that is undermining our industry, our institutions, our faith in God – everything. Yearly the working people drink greater quantities of alcohol. Naturally, through resulting inefficiency, the cost of production is higher, and therefore prices are higher.
Dowsett
Partly so, partly so. And in line with it, and in addition to it, prices are high because the working class is no longer thrifty. If our working class saved as the French peasant does, we would sell more in the world market and have better times.
Sakari
(Bowing.) As I understand it then, the more thrifty you are the more you save, and the more you save the more you have to sell, the more you sell, the better the times?
Dowsett
Exactly so. Exactly.
Sakari
The less you sell, the harder are the times?
Dowsett
Just so.
Sakari
Then if the people are thrifty, and buy less, times will be harder?
Dowsett
(Perplexed.) Er – it would seem so.
Sakari
Then it would seem that the present bad times are due to the fact that the people are thrifty, rather than not thrifty?
(Dowsett is nonplussed, and Mrs. Dowsett throws up her hands in despair.)
Mrs. Dowsett
(Turning to Knox.) Perhaps you can explain to us, Mr. Knox, the reason for this terrible condition of affairs.
(Starkweather closes note-book on finger and listens.) (Knox smiles, but does not speak.)
Dolores Ortega
Please do, Mr. Knox. I am so dreadfully anxious to know why living is so high now. Only this morning I understand meat went up again.
(Knox hesitates and looks questioningly at Margaret.)
Hubbard
I am sure Mr. Knox can shed new light on this perplexing problem.
Chalmers
Surely you, the whirlwind of oratorical swords in the House, are not timid here – among friends.
Knox
(Sparring.) I had no idea that questions of such nature were topics of conversation at affairs like this.
Starkweather
(Abruptly and imperatively.) What causes the high prices?
Knox
(Equally abrupt and just as positive as the other was imperative.) Theft!
(It is a sort of a bombshell he has exploded, but they receive it politely and smilingly, even though it has shaken them up.)
Dolores Ortega
What a romantic explanation. I suppose everybody who has anything has stolen it.
Knox
Not quite, but almost quite. Take motorcars, for example. This year five hundred million dollars has been spent for motor-cars. It required men toiling in the mines and foundries, women sewing their eyes out in sweat-shops, shop girls slaving for four and five dollars a week, little children working in the factories and cotton-mills – all these it required to produce those five hundred millions spent this year in motor-cars. And all this has been stolen from those who did the work.
Mrs. Starkweather
I always knew those motor-cars were to blame for terrible things.
Dolores Ortega
But Mr. Knox, I have a motor-car.
Knox
Somebody's labor made that car. Was it yours?
Dolores Ortega
Mercy, no! I bought it – and paid for it.
Knox
Then did you labor at producing something else, and exchange the fruits of that labor for the motor-car?
(A pause.)
You do not answer. Then I am to understand that you have a motor-car which was made by somebody else's labor and for which you gave no labor of your own. This I call theft. You call it property. Yet it is theft.
Starkweather
(Interrupting Dolores Ortega who was just about to speak.)
But surely you have intelligence to see the question in larger ways than stolen motor-cars. I am a man of affairs. I don't steal motor-cars.
Knox
(Smiling.) Not concrete little motor-cars, no. You do things on a large scale.
Starkweather
Steal?
Knox
(Shrugging his shoulders.) If you will have it so.
Starkweather
I am like a certain gentleman from Missouri. You've got to show me.
Knox
And I'm like the man from Texas. It's got to be put in my hand.
Starkweather
I shift my residence at once to Texas. Put it in my hand that I steal on a large scale.
Knox
Very well. You are the great financier, merger, and magnate. Do you mind a few statistics?
Starkweather
Go ahead.
Knox
You exercise a controlling interest in nine billion dollars' worth of railways; in two billion dollars' worth of industrial concerns; in one billion dollars' worth of life insurance groups; in one billion dollars' worth of banking groups; in two billion dollars' worth of trust companies. Mind you, I do not say you own all this, but that you exercise a controlling interest. That is all that is necessary. In short, you exercise a controlling interest in such a proportion of the total investments of the United States, as to set the pace for all the rest. Now to my point. In the last few years seventy billions of dollars have been artificially added to the capitalization of the nation's industries. By that I mean water – pure, unadulterated water. You, the merger, know what water means. I say seventy billions. It doesn't matter if we call it forty billions or eighty billions; the amount, whatever it is, is a huge one. And what does seventy billions of water mean? It means, at five per cent, that three billions and a half must be paid for things this year, and every year, more than things are really worth. The people who labor have to pay this. There is theft for you. There is high prices for you. Who put in the water? Who gets the theft of the water? Have I put it in your hand?
Starkweather
Are there no wages for stewardship?
Knox
Call it any name you please.
Starkweather
Do I not make two dollars where one was before? Do I not make for more happiness than was before I came?
Knox
Is that any more than the duty any man owes to his fellowman?
Starkweather
Oh, you unpractical dreamer. (Returns to his note-book.)
Rutland
(Throwing himself into the breach.) Where do I steal, Mr. Knox? – I who get a mere salary for preaching the Lord's Word.
Knox
Your salary comes out of that water I mentioned. Do you want to know who pays your salary? Not your parishioners. But the little children toiling in the mills, and all the rest – all the slaves on the wheel of labor pay you your salary.
Rutland
I earn it.
Knox
They pay it.
Mrs. Dowsett
Why, I declare, Mr. Knox, you are worse than Mr. Sakari. You are an anarchist.
(She simulates shivering with fear.)
Chalmers
(To Knox.) I suppose that's part of your speech to-morrow.
Dolores Ortega
(Clapping her hands.) A rehearsal! He's trying it out on us!
Sakari
How would you remedy this – er – this theft?
(Starkweather again closes note-book on finger and listens as Knox begins to speak.)
Knox
Very simply. By changing the governmental machinery by which this household of ninety millions of people conducts its affairs.
Sakari
I thought – I was taught so at Yale – that your governmental machinery was excellent, most excellent.
Knox
It is antiquated. It is ready for the scrap-heap. Instead of being our servant, it has mastered us. We are its slaves. All the political brood of grafters and hypocrites have run away with it, and with us as well. In short, from the municipalities up, we are dominated by the grafters. It is a reign of theft.
Hubbard
But any government is representative of its people. No people is worthy of a better government than it possesses. Were it worthier, it would possess a better government.
(Starkweather nods his head approvingly.)
Knox
That is a lie. And I say to you now that the average morality and desire for right conduct of the people of the United States is far higher than that of the government which misrepresents it. The people are essentially worthy of a better government than that which is at present in the hands of the politicians, for the benefit of the politicians and of the interests the politicians represent. I wonder, Mr. Sakari, if you have ever heard the story of the four aces.
Sakari
I cannot say that I have.
Knox
Do you understand the game of poker?
Sakari
(Considering.) Yes, a marvelous game. I have learned it – at Yale. It was very expensive.
Knox
Well, that story reminds me of our grafting politicians. They have no moral compunctions. They look upon theft as right – eminently right. They see nothing wrong in the arrangement that the man who deals the cards should give himself the best in the deck. Never mind what he deals himself, they'll have the deal next and make up for it.
Dolores Ortega
But the story, Mr. Knox. I, too, understand poker.
Knox
It occurred out in Nevada, in a mining camp. A tenderfoot was watching a game of poker, He stood behind the dealer, and he saw the dealer deal himself four aces from the bottom of the deck.
(From now on, he tells the story in the slow, slightly drawling Western fashion.) The tenderfoot went around to the player on the opposite side of the table.
"Say," he says, "I just seen the dealer give himself four aces off the bottom."
The player looked at him a moment, and said, "What of it?"
"Oh, nothing," said the tenderfoot, "only I thought you might want to know. I tell you I seen the dealer give himself four aces off the bottom."
"Look here, Mister," said the player, "you'd better get out of this. You don't understand the game. It's HIS deal, ain't it?"
Margaret
(Arising while they are laughing.) We've talked politics long enough. Dolores, I want you to tell me about your new car.
Knox
(As if suddenly recollecting himself.) And I must be going.
(In a low voice to Margaret.) Do I have to shake hands with all these people?
Margaret
(Shaking her head, speaking low.) Dear delightful Ali Baba.
Knox
(Glumly.) I suppose I've made a fool of myself.
Margaret
(Earnestly.) On the contrary, you were delightful. I am proud of you.
(As Knox shakes hands with Margaret, Sakari arises and comes forward).
Sakari
I, too, must go. I have had a charming half hour, Mrs. Chalmers. But I shall not attempt to thank you.
(He shakes hands with Margaret.)
(Knox and Sakari proceed to make exit to rear.)
(Just as they go out, Servant enters, carrying card-tray, and advances toward Starkweather.)
(Margaret joins Dolores Ortega and Chalmers, seats herself with them, and proceeds to talk motor-cars.)
