(LUCY jumps up.)
Why, when did you come?
COSENS. Just arrived —
PROFESSOR. Had you a good —
COSENS. Capital! Carriage to myself all the way. And how are you, Tom?
PROFESSOR. Much better — am I not, Miss Lucy?
LUCY. Anyone can see you are, isn’t it so, Miss Goodwillie?
(MISS GOODWILLIE shows displeasure.)
PROFESSOR. I say, Dick, do you remember what you thought was the matter with me?
COSENS. I do!
LUCY. And fancy, it turned out to be lumbago, Doctor. Is quinine good for lumbago?
(COSENS winces.)
PROFESSOR. Of course it was lumbago. Do I look as if it was the other thing, Dick? Ha, ha, Agnes, come here. Listen, Miss Lucy. I have such a joke for you, it is something I have not breathed to a soul, because it gave me such a fright at the time. You won’t mind my telling them, Dick?
COSENS. Why should I?
PROFESSOR. Well, you know, it does turn the laugh against you.
COSENS. H’m!
PROFESSOR. It’s this, Agnes. Listen, Miss Lucy. Dr. Cosens thought I had lost my power to work because I was in love, ha, ha, ha!
(Laughs, COSENS and LUCY laugh, MISS GOODWILLIE does not.)
LUCY. You’re not laughing, Miss Goodwillie.
(MISS GOODWILLIE goes up stage angrily, COSENS laughs heartily.)
PROFESSOR. Unless it was one of your jokes, Dick, you are a trump to take it so well.
COSENS. H’m! It is another joke I am laughing at, Tom. But as you are mending so rapidly, I suppose you are at work on your book again?
(LUCY rises.)
PROFESSOR. Eh — ah — no! I haven’t done anything to my book. The fact is, I have been so busy with other things —
COSENS. Such as ‘Peepbo.’ PROFESSOR. Well, at all events, if I was in love I wouldn’t be playing ‘peepbo’ with Miss White, would I?
COSENS. What would you be doing?
LUCY. He would be with his inamorata, of course — wouldn’t you, Professor?
PROFESSOR (rises). Naturally. Surely you see that, Dick.
(COSENS looks in PROFESSOR’S creel, LUCY goes.)
COSENS (to PROFESSOR). And is this all? (Holding up a small trout.)
PROFESSOR. All! I should think it is all.
COSENS. I thought you put the little ones back.
PROFESSOR (taking fish). Little ones. It’s a halfpounder.
COSENS. You don’t mind my smoking, do you, Miss Goodwillie?
MISS GOODWILLIE. Oh no. Tom, give the Doctor one of your cigars.
PROFESSOR. Eh! Oh yes.
COSENS. Thank you.
(PROFESSOR signs him ‘No.’ COSENS is perplexed.)
MISS GOODWILLIE. YOU have them with you?
PROFESSOR. Oh yes, I have them with me. (Finds them.)
Ah, here they are.
(Hands case to MISS GOODWILLIE who hands them to COSENS, still signing to him. COSENS takes one and puts it in his mouth.)
MISS GOODWILLIE. I bought these for Tom.
COSENS (hurriedly removing cigar from his mouth). Oh!
MISS GOODWILLIE. Yes, he was actually paying fifty shillings a hundred for his cigars, and I got these for twelve and sixpence. They are quite as large, Tom. (Gives case to PROFESSOR.)
PROFESSOR. Yes — quite as — large. (Moves up and looks off.)
COSENS. They are wonderfully large, but I shall keep this one until after dinner, it is so — large.
PROFESSOR (feeling a vacuum). Miss Lucy has gone! (Looks for her.)
(MISS GOODWILLIE signs hurriedly to COSENS to take him away, and goes.)
COSENS (crossing to PROFESSOR and taking him by arm and dragging him across stage). Come along, Tom, and show me the sights. I’m burning to revisit them. The bridge and the kirk — and the kirk and the bridge. Is the village pump mended yet?
PROFESSOR. But Miss White?
MISS GOODWILLIE. Oh, I want to talk with her.
PROFESSOR. Good, very good. I am so glad you and she get on so well together, Agnes.
MISS GOODWILLIE. Don’t we?
COSENS. Come, Tom.
PROFESSOR. Dick, could you jump that stook?
COSENS. Not I.
PROFESSOR. Then look here. Hold my hat. (Hands hat to COSENS, throws rod and creel down, jumps over stook.) What do you think of that?
COSENS. For a man with lumbago, capital.
PROFESSOR. Look out! (Jumps back.)
COSENS. Hang it, Tom, you seem to have put off the Professor since you came north, and to have become a boy again.
PROFESSOR. That is so, Dick, and I can’t understand it. Very odd — very — it must be something in the air.
(COSENS looks at MISS GOODWILLIE, who signs to him to take PROFESSOR away.)
COSENS. Let us go.
PROFESSOR. Yes.
(Just as they are going LUCY’S voice is heard calling ‘Peep bo.’)
PROFESSOR (going). You heard that. Where is Miss Lucy? Where can she be? I wonder where Miss Lucy is?
(Jumps stook and exit, COSENS laughs.)
MISS GOODWILLIE. Now you know the situation — and you seem to enjoy it more than I do.
COSENS. YOU seem to like it so little that I wonder you have not ended it.
MISS GOODWILLIE. I wish I could, but I can’t send the woman away without telling Tom the reason, and then he is just as likely as not to propose to her.
COSENS. Or would it frighten him out of his wits?
MISS GOODWILLIE. Who can say?
COSENS. Do you want him always to remain a bachelor?
MISS GOODWILLIE. Till I can find the right woman for him.
COSENS. Men are independent creatures, you know. Suppose Tom has found the right woman for himself.
MISS GOODWILLIE. Lucy White?
COSENS. After all, you know nothing against her.
MISS GOODWILLIE. I wish I did.
COSENS. Except that Tom loves her.
MISS GOODWILLIE. Loves her, bah!
COSENS. How bitterly you speak of love.
MISS GOODWILLIE. Your old friend, Bob Sandeman, taught me what a man’s love amounts to, and I am not afraid to put an end to Tom’s.
COSENS. Are you doing right?
MISS GOODWILLIE. I know what is best for Tom Goodwillie.
COSENS. And I suppose no one can be expected to think of what might be best for Lucy White?
(LUCY runs on in game.)
Miss GOODWILLIE. Ah, Miss White, we were talking about you.
LUCY. That must be why my ear was burning. And which