The Magic Tower and Other One-Act Plays Read Online Free PDF Page B

the show?
    LINDA : This is it! [
Takes Mitch’s handkerchief to wipe her eyes
.] Oh, it really isn’t as bad as it looks! It’s what they call a—a studio apartment! All young artists have places like this!
    BABE : I getcha. Bohemian, huh? Sure. This is really the stuff. Atmosphere. Color. Cockroaches and a leaking roof—well , where’s the master of the house?
    LINDA [
proudly
]: He’s calling on T. Anthony Wescott at the Waldorf-Astoria. He just arrived this morning aboard the
Île de France
.
    BABE : The Eel de Frawnce? Well, fawncy that! Don’t you remember, my dear, that’s where we met the Count and Countess De Tootsie! It was simply ripping, you know, how the Count dunked his monocle in Lady Clamfeather’s soup!
    LINDA : Oh, Babe! Crazy as ever—Wescott’s an art—dealer—Jim’s gone to show him some of his pictures and if he’ll just take an interest in Jim’s work it will mean everything for us! It will mean— [
She gets up and goes to window
.] Just everything! . . . Oh—I wish this rain would stop! Poor Jim will get soaking wet!
    MITCH : So Jim’s the name. What’s the rest of it?
    LINDA : Mr. and Mrs. James Oliver Flynn!
    MITCH : Fancy moniker, that! Look good on a billboard. Mr. and Mrs. Flynn and the Five Little Flying Flynns! How about it, Duchess? What can he do? Dance, patter, croon—adagio ?
    LINDA : He’s an artist, you nut! Haven’t you ever heard of an artist before?
    MITCH : Sure. An artist is a guy that’s out of a job and don’t give a damn. [
He opens a cigarette case and offers it to Linda. Linda and Babe take cigarettes
.] Seriously, Duchess, how are you fixed?
    LINDA : Okay.
    BABE : Come on. No stalling. What’s the real situation. On the rocks, huh?
    LINDA [
smiling bravely
]: Everything is okay.
    BABE : Yeah. Everything including the roof. You look like you haven’t had a square meal in a couple of weeks!
    MITCH : Come on, Duchess! You don’t have to put on an act with us!
    LINDA [
walking back to the window
]: Oh, he works so hard, poor Jim! It’s pitiful how hard he works. And nothing ever comes of it! Nothing at all!
    MITCH [
harshly
]: Just as I thought! He’s a ham! Come on, Duchess, pack up this new traveling bag and let’s get going!
    LINDA : What on earth do you mean?
    BABE : You know that you can get your old job back.
    LINDA : You two must be crazy!
    MITCH : You’re going out on tour with us, Duchess. Bergmann said so. He sent us out here to get you. All is forgiven, come home, he said!
    LINDA : Give Mr. Bergmann my regrets. I’m not available this season—say—what do you all think I am? Do you think I’d walk out on Jim just because things are a little tough right now? I’m not any quitter!
    BABE : You walked out on the show pretty quick!
    LINDA [
smiling
]: I wasn’t in love with the show.
    BABE : So you’re in love with this sap?
    MITCH : Of course she ain’t. Not the Duchess. She always had too much sense. The smartest girl in the show, Bergmann used to say—
    LINDA : I
am
in love with him! Of course I am. [
She turns her back to them
.] And if you’re going to talk about him like that—
    MITCH [
good-humoredly
]: The same old Duchess! Always on the high horse about something—
    BABE : Be sensible, kid— !
    LINDA [
seating herself on the couch
]: Oh, it’s like the show business and everything else. You have to work your way up.
    MITCH : Yeah, but in the show business even the back row hoofers get regular pay. What do you folks live off of, huh? Love and a dime?
    LINDA [
laughing
]: Love and thirty cents!
    BABE [
sitting beside Linda
]: Thirty cents!
    LINDA : He gets thirty cents an hour posing at the art school where he used to study.
    MITCH : Posies, posies, who will buy my posies?
    LINDA : Once in a while he paints an advertising poster—that helps out some.
    MITCH : Swell. You can give him a job some day painting your signs on Broadway!
    BABE : And so that’s how you live? How do you do it, honey?
    LINDA : I don’t know.