[He plants his feet voluptuously upon the floor.]
MENDEL
Come, come, David, I asked you to be serious. Surely, some day you'd like your music produced?
DAVID [Jumps up]
Wouldn't it be glorious? To hear it all actually coming out of violins and 'cellos, drums and trumpets.
MENDEL
And you'd like it to go all over the world?
DAVID
All over the world and all down the ages.
MENDEL
But don't you see that unless you go and study seriously in Germany--?
[Enter KATHLEEN from kitchen, carrying a furnished tea-tray with
ear-shaped cakes, bread and butter, etc., and wearing a grotesque
false nose. MENDEL cries out in amaze.] Kathleen!
DAVID [Roaring with boyish laughter]
Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!
KATHLEEN [Standing still with her tray]
Sure, what's the matter?
DAVID
Look in the glass!
KATHLEEN [Going to the mantel]
Houly Moses!
[She drops the tray, which MENDEL catches, and snatches off the
nose.] Och, I forgot to take it off-'twas the misthress gave it me-I put it on to cheer her up.
DAVID
Is she so miserable, then?
KATHLEEN
Terrible low, Mr. David, to-day being Purim.
MENDEL
Purim! Is to-day Purim?
[Gives her the tea-tray back. KATHLEEN, to take it, drops her
nose and forgets to pick it up.]
DAVID
But Purim is a merry time, Kathleen, like your Carnival. Haven't you read the book of Esther-how the Jews of Persia escaped massacre?
KATHLEEN
That's what the misthress is so miserable about. Ye don't keep the Carnival. There's noses for both of ye in the kitchen-didn't I go with her to Hester Street to buy 'em?-but ye don't be axin' for 'em. And to see your noses layin' around so solemn and neglected, faith, it nearly makes me chry meself.
MENDEL [Bitterly to himself]
Who can remember about Purim in America?
DAVID [Half-smiling]
Poor granny, tell her to come in and I'll play her Purim jig.
MENDEL [Hastily]
No, no, David, not here-the visitors!
DAVID
Visitors? What visitors?
MENDEL [Impatiently]
That's just what I've been trying to explain.
DAVID
Well, I can play in the kitchen.
[He takes his violin. Exit to kitchen. MENDEL sighs and shrugs
his shoulders hopelessly at the boy's perversity, then fingers
the cups and saucers.]
MENDEL [Anxiously]
Is that the best tea-set?
KATHLEEN
Can't you see it's the Passover set!
[Ruefully] And shpiled intirely it'll be now for our Passover.... And the misthress thought the visitors might like to thry some of her Purim cakes.
[Indicates ear-shaped cakes on tray.]
MENDEL [Bitterly]
Purim cakes!
[He turns his back on her and stares moodily out of the
window.]
KATHLEEN [Mutters contemptuously]
Call yerself a Jew and you forgettin' to keep Purim!
[She is going back to the kitchen when a merry Slavic dance
breaks out, softened by the door; her feet unconsciously get more
and more into dance step, and at last she jigs out. As she opens
and passes through the door, the music sounds louder.]
FRAU QUIXANO [Heard from kitchen]
Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Kathleen!!
[MENDEL'S feet, too, begin to take the swing of the music, and
his feet dance as he stares out of the window. Suddenly the hoot
of an automobile is heard, followed by the rattling up of the
car.]
MENDEL
Ah, she has brought somebody swell!
[He throws open the doors and goes out eagerly to meet the
visitors. The dance music goes on softly throughout the scene. ]
QUINCY DAVENPORT [Outside]
Oh, thank you-I leave the coats in the car.
[Enter an instant later QUINCY DAVENPORT and VERA REVENDAL,
MENDEL in the rear. VERA is dressed much as before, but with a
motor veil, which she takes off during the scene. DAVENPORT is a
dude, aping the air of a European sporting clubman. Aged about
thirty-five and well set-up, he wears an orchid and an
intermittent eyeglass, and gives the impression of a
coarse-fibred and patronisingly facetious but not bad-hearted
man, spoiled by prosperity.]
MENDEL
Won't you be seated?
VERA
First let me introduce my friend, who is good enough to interest himself in your nephew-Mr. Quincy Davenport.
MENDEL [Struck of a heap]
Mr. Quincy Davenport! How strange!
VERA
What is strange?
MENDEL
David just mentioned Mr. Davenport's name-said they travelled to New York on the same boat.
QUINCY
Impossible! Always travel on my own yacht. Slow but select. Must have been another man of the same name-my dad. Ha! Ha! Ha!
MENDEL
Ah, of course. I thought you were too young.
QUINCY
My dad, Miss Revendal, is one of those antiquated Americans who are always in a hurry!
VERA
He burns coal and you burn time.
QUINCY
Precisely! Ha! Ha! Ha!
MENDEL
Won't you sit down-I'll go and prepare David.
VERA [Sitting]
You've not prepared him yet?
MENDEL
I've tried to more than once-but I never really got to--
[He smiles] to Germany.
[QUINCY sits.]
VERA
Then prepare him for three visitors.
MENDEL
Three?
VERA
You see Mr. Davenport himself is no judge of music.
QUINCY [Jumps up]
I beg your pardon.
VERA
In manuscript.
QUINCY
Ah, of course not. Music should be heard, not seen-like that jolly jig. Is that your David?
MENDEL
Oh, you mustn't judge him by that. He's just fooling.
QUINCY
Oh, he'd better not fool with Poppy. Poppy's awful severe.
MENDEL
Poppy?
QUINCY
Pappelmeister-my private orchestra conductor.
MENDEL
Is it your orchestra Pappelmeister conducts?
QUINCY
Well, I pay the piper-and the drummer too!
[He chuckles.]
MENDEL [Sadly]