The Vengeance of Caste from Mister Punch's Dramatic Sequels by Saint John Hankin. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or
to volunteer, please visit libravox dot org. Cast Most people in their day have wept tears of relief at the ending of T. W. Robertson's comedy Caste, when the Honorable George Dolroy not dead, poor Chap falls into the arms of his wife Esther, while his father in law Eccles bestows a drunken benediction upon him before starting for Jersey, and his sister in law Polly and her adored plumber
Garage embrace sympathetically in the background. In these circumstances, it seems hardly kind to add a further act in this harrowing drama, But the writer of sequels like Nemesis is inexorable. If the perusal of the following scene prevents any young subaltern from emulating Daltroy and marrying a ballet dancer with a drunken father, it will not have been written in vain dramatis persone Ester.
Dalroy read by Amanda Friday.
George the Andlroy read by Lambda.
Made read by Charlotte Duckats.
Eccles read by Todd.
Narrated by Capricia Page. Scene the dining room of the Dolroys house in the Suburbs. Dinner is just over and George Dalroy, in a seedy coat and carpet slippers, is sitting by the fire smoking a pipe. On the other side of the fire sits Esther, his wife, darning a song.
Tired George, Yes, had a bad day in the city.
Beastly. I believe I am the unluckiest figure in the world. Every stock I touch goes down.
Why don't you give up speculating if you're so unlucky, George hurt.
I don't speculate, Dear, I invest.
Why don't you give up investing? Then it makes a dreadful hole in our income.
One must do something for one's living.
Esther sighing, Ah, what a pity it is. You left the army.
I had to the regiment wouldn't stand your father. He was always coming to the mess room when he was drunk and asking for me. So the colonel said, I would better send in my papers.
Esther gently, not drunk, George.
The colonel said so, and he was rather a judge.
Esther, unable to improve upon her own phrase.
Father is a very eccentric man, but a very good man when you know.
Him, George grimly.
If you mean by eccentric a man who is always drunk and won't die, he is most eccentric.
Hush, dear, After all, he's my father.
That's my objection to him.
I'm afraid you must have lost a great deal of money to day.
Pretty well, but I have noticed that retired military men who go into the city invariably do lose money.
Why do they go into the city, then.
George gloomily?
Why?
Indeed, there is a short pause. George stares moodily at the fire.
I had a visit from your mother to day. How was she not very well? She has aged sadly in the last few years. Her hair is quite white. Now, George have to.
Himself, poor mother, Poor mother.
She was very kind, she asked, particularly after you.
And she saw little George gently.
I think she is getting more reconciled to our marriage, do.
You really, Dear, looks at her curiously.
Yes, and I think it's such a good thing. How strange it is that people should attach such importance to class distinctions.
Forgive me, dear, but if you think it's strange that Marcus the Samore does not consider mister Eckles and the garage's wholly desirable connections, I am afraid I cannot agree with you.
Of course, Papa is a very eccentric man.
My dear esther Mister Eccles made his hundred and fifty sixth appearance in the police court last week. The fact was made the subject of jocular comment in the cheaper evening papers. The The sentence was five shillings or seven days.
Poor Papa felt his position acutely.
Not half so acutely as I did. I paid the five shillings if he had only consented to remaind in Jersey.
But you know Jersey didn't suit him. He was never well.
There, He was never sobber there. That was the only thing that was the matter with them. No, my love, let us look at facts in the face. You are, my dear little woman, but your father is detestable. And there is not the smallest ground for hope that my mother will ever be reconciled to our marriage, as long as she retains her reason.
I suppose Father is rather a difficulty.
Yes, he and the garages between them have made as impossible socially.
What's the matter with the gurages?
Nothing except that you always ask them to all our dinner parties, and as gentle people have a curious prejudice. Again, sitting down to dinner with a plumber and a glacier, it somewhat narrows of a circle of acquaintance.
But Sam isn't a working plumber. Now he has a shop of his own, quite a large shop, and the house is just as good as ours. The furniture is better. Sam bought Polly a new carpet for the drawing room only last week. It cost fourteen pounds, and our drawing room carpet is dreadfully shabby.
I am glad they are getting on so well.
With a flicker of hope.
Do you think there is any chance as they grow more prosperous of the air dropping.
Us esther indignantly?
How can you think of such a thing, George.
Sighing, I was afraid not esther enthusiastically.
Why Sam is as kind as can be, and so is Polly, And you know how fun they are of little George poor child.
Yes, he has always played with their children ever since he could toddle. And what is their result? A cockney accent that is indescribable.
What does it matter about his accent so long as he is a good boy and grows up to be a good.
Man Ethically, my dear, not at all. But practically it matters a great deal. It causes me intense physical discomfort, and I think it is killing my mother.
George.
Moreover, when the time comes for him to go to a public school, he will probably be very unhappy in consequence. Why merely irrational prejudice. Public school boys dislike all deviations from the normal, and to them happily, a pronounce cockney accent represents the height of abnormality.
As Sadly, in spite of our marriage, I'm afraid you're still a worshiper of caste. I thought you turned your back on all that when you married me.
So I did, Dear, so I did. But I don't want to commit my son to the same hazard as experiment.
Ah, George, you don't really love me, or you wouldn't talk like that.
My dear, I love you to distraction. That's exactly the difficulty I am torn between my devotion to you and my abhorrence of your relations. When your father returned from Jersey and took a lodging close by us, nothing but the warmth of my affection prevented me from leaving you forever. He is still here, and so am I. What great a proof could you have of the strength of my attachment?
Poor father, he could not bear to be away from us, and he has grown so fond of little George.
George shudders.
Father has a good heart.
I wish he had a stronger head.
This remark is prompted by the sound of mister Eccles entering the front door and having a tipsy altercation with the maid maid announcing mister Eccles Eccles joyously.
Ay evening, eh me children, bless you, bless you, good evening. Father. Won't you agin speak to your old father in law.
Georgy, George says nothing.
Ah, pride, pride, cruel pride. You come before a fall.
You do.
We're just heavily against the table and subsides into a chair.
Funny that, oh, Mortget, seemed as if that proverb was a coming true that time.
George sternly, how often have I told you, mister Eccles, not to come to this house except when you're sober.
Eccles, raising his voice in indignant protest.
Shober, perfectly, shober, shobre is a judge. I am afraid I can't argue with you as to the precise stage of intoxication in which you find yourself. You had better go home at once.
Do you hear that, Esther, Do you hear that? Meet you old? Yes, father, I think you had better go home. You're not very well tonight.
Eccles, rising unsteadily from his chair. All right, Esther, I'm going good night, Georgie, George, with the greatest politeness.
Good night, mister Eccles. If you could possibly manage to fall down and damage yourself seriously on the way home, I should be infinitely obliged.
Eccles begins to weep.
There's words to address to a loving him, for in law, there's words lurches out.
I think, George, you had better see him home. It's not safe for him to be alone in that state.
George savagely safe.
I don't want him to be safe. Nothing would give me greater satisfaction than to hear he had broken his neck esther gently, but.
He might meet a policeman.
George, ha, that's another matter. Perhaps I had better see the beast into a cab.
Esther, sighing, Ah, you never understood, poor father.
A crash is heard from the hall as Ecoles lurches heavily and upsets the hat stand. George throws up his hands in despair at the wreck of the hall furniture, or perhaps at the obtuseness of his wife's last remark, and goes out to call a cab curtain. End of the Vengeance of Caste