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A Duel in the Dark: An Original Farce, in One Act cover

A Duel in the Dark: An Original Farce, in One Act

Chapter 4: Transcriber’s Note
By J. Stirling Coyne
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About This Book

A one-act farce set in a hotel follows a husband who believes he is traveling with a veiled foreign countess while his wife, disguised with the help of her maid, orchestrates a scheme to test his fidelity. The plot unfolds through misread gestures, rapid entrances and exits, and escalating comic deceptions that play on social pretension and marital jealousy. Witty exchanges and physical business drive the action toward a chaotic confrontation in which hidden identities are revealed and romantic folly is satirized.

Transcriber’s Note

This transcription is based on images digitized by the University of Toronto and posted by the Internet Archive at:

archive.org/details/duelindarkanorig00coynuoft

In general, this transcription attempts to retain the punctuation and spelling of the source text, including variant spellings such as “havn’t” and “musn’t.” In a few cases where the quality of the images made a word or a punctuation mark hard to read, the obvious reading was considered the correct reading without comment.

The following changes were made:

  • p. 2: Green coat, light blue trowsers, and French travelling cap,—Changed comma at end of costume note to a period.
  • p. 3: Door, 2 E. L. Door. 3 E. L.—Changed period between “Door” and “3” to a comma.
  • p. 5: the second day he performed a love pantomine at his window—Changed “pantomine” to “pantomime”.
  • p. 5: GREEN. I’ve ordered dinner at five; aud now—Changed “aud” to “and”.
  • p. 6: vil you permit me, vile in dis maison, to be apellez your femme—Italicized “maison” and “apellez” for consistency.
  • p. 8: from your room there, ((pointing R.)—Deleted one parenthesis before “pointing”.
  • p. 9: MRS. G. Que faites vous ici, mon cher Grinfeench.—Changed period after “Grinfeench” to a question mark.
  • p. 9: I know she’s somewhere in the vicinity of this brown leather trunk—Inserted a period after “trunk”.
  • p. 11: Maria Jane! hist! (taps) MRS. G., my dear—eh?—Changed “MRS.” to “Mrs.”
  • p. 12: in the way that gentlemen wish to to be who love their wine.—Deleted the second “to”.
  • p. 13: MRS. G. Well, Mister What’s-your name—Inserted a hyphen between “your” and “name”.
  • p. 13: stop, and hear me! Young woman retire—Added a period after “retire”.
  • p. 14: my pistols are in the next room (going)—Added a period after “room”.
  • p. 14: I can have no objection,—Changed comma after “objection” to a period.
  • p. 14: BETSY. (apart to MRS. G.) Here are the pistols, ma’am—Added a period after “ma’am”.
  • p. 15: Very well, now mind your eye “Death!”—Inserted a period after “eye”.
  • p. 15: MRS. G. Very well, then—look sharp! (GREEN ducks behind the stove)—Changed “GREEN” to “GREENFINCH”.
  • p. 15: MRS. G. Here—here! (GREEN. stumbles against her)—Changed “GREEN.” to “GREENFINCH”.
  • p. 15: Assist me to my room—will you (GREEN assists her)—Inserted a question mark after “you” and changed “GREEN” to “GREENFINCH”.
  • p. 17: GREEN. drops his head on the GENDARME’S shoulder—Changed “GREEN.” to “GREENFINCH”.