JOHN. Boy or girl?
WENDY (presenting herself). Girl.
JOHN. Tuts.
WENDY. You horrid.
JOHN. Go on.
WENDY. I am happy to acquaint you, Mr. Darling, you are again a father.
JOHN. Boy or girl?
WENDY. Boy. (JOHN beams.) Mummy, it's hateful of him.
(MICHAEL emerges from the bathroom in JOHN'S old pyjamas and giving his face a last wipe with the towel.)
MICHAEL (expanding). Now, John, have me.
JOHN. We don't want any more.
MICHAEL (contracting). Am I not to be born at all?
JOHN. Two is enough.
MICHAEL (wheedling). Come, John; boy, John. (Appalled) Nobody wants me!
MRS. DARLING. I do.
MICHAEL (with a glimmer of hope). Boy or girl?
MRS. DARLING (with one of those happy thoughts of hers). Boy.
(Triumph of MICHAEL; discomfiture of JOHN. MR.DARLING arrives, in no mood unfortunately to gloat over this domestic scene. He is really a good man as breadwinners go, and it is hard luck for him to be propelled into the room now, when if we had brought him in a few minutes earlier or later he might have made a fairer impression. In the city where he sits on a stool all day, as fixed as a postage stamp, he is so like all the others on stools that you recognise him not by his face but by his stool, but at home the way to gratify him is to say that he has a distinct personality. He is very conscientious, and in the days when MRS. DARLING gave up keeping the house books correctly and drew pictures instead (which he called her guesses), he did all the totting up for her, holding her hand while he calculated whether they could have Wendy or not, and coming down on the right side. It is with regret, therefore, that we introduce him as a tornado, rushing into the nursery in evening dress, but without his coat, and brandishing in his hand a recalcitrant white tie.)
MR. DARLING (implying that he has searched for her everywhere and that the nursery is a strange place in which to find her). Oh, here you are, Mary.
MRS. DARLING (knowing at once what is the matter). What is the matter, George dear?
MR. DARLING (as if the word were monstrous). Matter! This tie, it will not tie. (He waxes sarcastic.) Not round my neck. Round the bed-post, oh yes; twenty times have I made it up round the bed-post, but round my neck, oh dear no; begs to be excused.
MICHAEL (in a joyous transport). Say it again, father, say it again!
MR. DARLING (witheringly). Thank you. (Goaded by asuspiciously crooked smile on MRS. DARLING'S face) I warn you, Mary, that unless this tie is round my neck we don't goout to dinner to-night, and if I don't go out to dinner to-night I never go to the office again, and if I don't go to the office again you and I starve, and our children will be thrown into the streets.
(The children blanch as they grasp the gravity of the situation.)
MRS. DARLING. Let me try, dear.
(In a terrible silence their progeny cluster round them. Will she succeed? Their fate depends on it. She fails—no, she succeeds. In another moment they are wildly gay, romping round the room on each other's shoulders. Father is even a better horse than mother. MICHAEL is dropped upon his bed, WENDY retires to prepare for hers, JOHN runs from NANA, who has reappeared with the bath towel.)
JOHN (rebellious). I won't be bathed. You needn't think it.
MR. DARLING (in the grand manner). Go and be bathed at once, sir.
(With bent head JOHN follows NANA into the bathroom. MR. DARLING swells.)
MICHAEL (as he is put between the sheets). Mother, how did you get to know me?
MR. DARLING. A little less noise there.
MICHAEL (growing solemn). At what time was I born, mother?
MRS. DARLING. At two o'clock in the night-time, dearest.
MICHAEL. Oh, mother, I hope I didn't wake you.
MRS. DARLING. They are rather sweet, don't you think,George?
MR. DARLING (doting). There is not their equal on earth, and they are ours, ours!
(Unfortunately NANA has come from the bathroom for a sponge and she collides with his trousers) the first pair he has ever had with braid on them.)
MR. DARLING. Mary, it is too bad; just look at this; covered with hairs. Clumsy, clumsy!
(NANA goes, a drooping figure.)
MRS. DARLING. Let me brush you, dear.
(Once more she is successful. They are now by the fire, and MICHAEL is in bed doing idiotic things with a teddy bear.)
MR. DARLING (depressed). I sometimes think, Mary, that it is a mistake to have a dog for a nurse.
MRS. DARLING. George, Nana is a treasure.
MR. DARLING. No doubt; but I have an uneasy feeling at times that she looks upon the children as puppies.
MRS. DARLING (rather faintly). Oh no, dear one, I am sure she knows they have souls.
MR. DARLING (profoundly). I wonder, I wonder.
(The opportunity has come for her to tell him of something that is on her mind.)
MRS. DARLING. George, we must keep Nana. I will tell you why. (Her seriousness impresses him.) My dear, when I came into this room to-night I saw a face at the window.
MR. DARLING (incredulous). A face at the window, three floors up? Pooh!
MRS. DARLING. It was the face of a little boy; he was trying to get in. George, this is not the first time I have seen that boy.
MR. DARLING (beginning to think that this may be a man's job). Oho!
MRS. DARLING (making sure that MICHAEL does not hear). The first time was a week ago. It was Nana's night out, and I had been drowsing here by the fire when suddenly I felt a draught, as if the window were open. I looked round and I saw that boy—in the room.
MR. DARLING. In the room?
MRS. DARLING. I screamed. Just then Nana came back and she at once sprang at him. The boy leapt for the window. She pulled down the sash quickly, but was too late to catch him.
MR. DARLING (who knows he would not have been too late). I thought so!
MRS. DARLING. Wait. The boy escaped, but his shadow had not time to get out; down came the window and cut it clean off.
MR. DARLING (heavily). Mary, Mary, why didn't you keep that shadow?
MRS. DARLING (scoring). I did. I rolled it up, George; and here it is.
(She produces it from a drawer. They unroll and examine the flimsy thing, which is not more material than a puff of smoke, and if let go would probably float into the ceiling without discolouring it. Yet it has human shape. As they nod their heads over it they present the most satisfying picture on earth, two happy parents conspiring cosily by the fire for the good of their children.)
MR. DARLING. It is nobody I know, but he does look ascoundrel.
MRS. DARLING. I think he comes back to get his shadow,George.
MR. DARLING (meaning that the miscreant has now a father to deal with). I dare say. (He sees himself telling the story to the other stools at the office.) There is money in this, my love. I shall take it to the British Museum to-morrow and have it priced.
(The shadow is rolled up and replaced in the drawer.)
MRS. DARLING (like a guilty person). George, I have not told you all; I am afraid to.
MR. DARLING (who knows exactly the right moment to treat a woman as a beloved child). Cowardy, cowardy