Overview
- Female: 1
- Male: 2
Context
Agatha Posket has lied to her second husband Aeneas (married only three weeks) about her age, claiming she was only 31 years old, when she is actually 36. With her lie, she has also changed her son Cis from 19 to 14 years old. In an attempt to cover up her lie, Agatha was caught up in a police raid at the Hotel des Princes - a raid that Mr. Posket and Cis escaped from. Ironically, Mr. Posket was the magistrate at Agatha’s court hearing. In shock and embarrassment, Mr. Posket sentenced her to
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Mr. Posket. How dare you look me in the face, madam?
Agatha Posket. How dare you look at anybody in any position, sir? You send your wife to prison for pushing a mere policeman.
Mr. Posket. I didn’t know what I was doing.
Agatha Posket. Not when you requested two ladies to raise their veils and show their faces in the dock? We shouldn’t have been discovered but for that.
Mr. Posket. It was my duty.
Agatha Posket. Duty! You don’t go to the police court again alone! I guess now, Æneas Posket, why you clung to a single life so long. You liked it!
Mr. Posket. I wish I had.
Agatha Posket. Why didn’t you marry till you were fifty?
Mr. Posket. Perhaps I hadn’t met a widow, madam.
Agatha Posket. Paltry excuse. You revelled in a dissolute bachelorhood!
Mr. Posket. Hah! Whist every evening!
Agatha Posket. You can’t play whist alone. You’re an expert at hiding too!
Mr. Posket. If I were I should thrash your boy!
Agatha Posket. When you wished to conceal yourself last night, you selected a table with a lady under it.
Mr. Posket. Ah, did you pinch me, or did Charlotte?
Agatha Posket. I did—Charlotte’s a single girl.
Mr. Posket. I fancy, madam, you found my conduct under that table perfectly respectful?
Agatha Posket. I don’t know—I was too agitated to notice.
Mr. Posket. Evasion—you’re like all the women.
Agatha Posket. Profligate! You oughtn’t to know that!
Mr. Posket. No wife of mine sups, unknown to me, with dissolute military men; we will have a judicial separation, Mrs. Posket.
Agatha Posket. Certainly—I suppose you’ll manage that at your police court, too?
Mr. Posket. I shall send for my solicitor at once.
Agatha Posket. Æneas! Mr. Posket! Whatever happens, you shall not have the custody of my boy.
Mr. Posket. Your boy! I take charge of him? Agatha Posket, he has been my evil genius! He has made me a gambler at an atrocious game, called “Fireworks”—he has tortured my mind with abstruse speculations concerning “Sillikin” and “Butterscotch” for the St. Leger—he has caused me to cower before servants, and to fly before the police.
Agatha Posket. He! My Cis?
[Cis enters having changed his clothes.]
Cis. [Breezily.] Hallo, mater—got back?
Agatha Posket. You wicked boy! You dare to have apartments at the “Hotel des Princes!”
Mr. Posket. Yes—and it was to put a stop to that which induced me to go to Meek Street last night.
Cis. Don’t be angry, mater! I’ve got you out of your difficulties.
Mr. Posket. But you got me into mine!
Cis. Well, I know I did—one can’t be always doing the right thing! It isn’t Guv’s fault—there!
Mr. Posket. Swear it!
Agatha Posket. No, he doesn’t know the nature of an oath! I believe him! Æneas, I see now, this is all the result of a lack of candour on my part. Tell me, have you ever particularly observed this child?
Mr. Posket. Oh!
Agatha Posket. Has it ever struck you he is a little forward?
Mr. Posket. Sometimes.
Agatha Posket. You are wrong; he is awfully backward. [Taking Mr. Posket’s hand.] Æneas; men always think they are marrying angels, and women would be angels if they never had to grow old. That warps their dispositions. I have deceived you, Æneas.
Mr. Posket. Ah! Lukyn!
Agatha Posket. No—no—you don’t understand! Lukyn was my boy’s godfather in eighteen sixty-six.
Mr. Posket. 1866?
Cis. 1866?
Cis and Mr. Posket. [Together, reckoning rapidly upon their fingers.] 1886.
Agatha Posket. S-s-s-h! Don’t count! Cis, go away! [To Mr. Posket.] When you proposed to me in the “Pantheon” at Spa, you particularly remarked, “Mrs. Farringdon, I love you for yourself alone.”
Mr. Posket. I know I did.
Agatha Posket. Those were terrible words to address to a widow with a son of nineteen. [Cis and Mr. Posket again reckon rapidly upon their fingers.] Don’t count, Æneas, don’t count! Those words tempted me. I glanced at my face in a neighbouring mirror, and I said “Æneas is fifty—why should I—a mere woman, compete with him on the question of age? He has already the advantage—I will be generous—I will add to it!” I led you to believe I had been married only fifteen years ago, I deceived you and my boy as to his real age, and I told you I was but one-and-thirty.
Mr. Posket. It wasn’t the truth?
Agatha Posket. Ah! I merely lacked woman’s commonest fault, exaggeration.
Mr. Posket. But—Lukyn?
Agatha Posket. Knows the real facts. I went to him last night to beg him not to disturb an arrangement which had brought happiness to all parties. Look. In place of a wayward, troublesome child, I now present you with a youth old enough to be a joy, comfort, and support!
Cis. Oh, I say, mater, this is a frightful sell for a fellow.
Agatha Posket. Go to your room, sir.
Cis. I always thought there was something wrong with me. Blessed if I’m not behind the age!
[Cis goes out.]
Agatha Posket. Forgive me, Æneas. Look at my bonnet! A night in Mulberry Street, without even a powder-puff, is an awful expiation.
Mr. Posket. Agatha! How do I know Cis won’t be five-and twenty to-morrow?
Agatha Posket. No—no—you know the worst, and as long as I live, I’ll never deceive you again—except in little things.
Pinero, Arthur Wing. The Magistrate. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/41750/41750-h/41750-h.htm
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