SOME MISCHIEF STILL
Characters
Maxwell Johnson
Mrs. Maxwell Johnson (née Helen White)
Lionel Morris
John Ryan
A Policeman
Place: New York; the upper West Side.
Time: The present.
SCENE—The living room of a six-room apartment. On one side is a mahogany pianola; at the back is a doorway with a heavy portière, drawn aside to show a portion of the hall with a wall telephone. At the right of the doorway is a life size statue of a nude woman, the distance from her feet to her waist being four times that from her waist to her head, which is very small and has no features except a prominent nose. Her arms are stretched out at right angles to her body, and she has been painted a vivid purple.
It is evening; the electric lamp is lit and there is a faint light in the hall.
Maxwell Johnson, a man of about thirty, is lying in slippered ease on a chaise-longue, smoking a cigar. Mrs. Johnson is seated facing him on the bench by the pianola. She is a very pretty young woman, rather too highly coloured, wearing an extremely décolleté gown of pale green charmeuse, a long string of large jade beads and a broad silver bracelet. She has a profusion of bright yellow hair. One knee is crossed over the other, revealing green silk stockings and silver slippers.
Maxwell
But Anarchists don’t ride in automobiles, do they, Nellie?
Helen
Max, I do wish you wouldn’t tease me about things that are sacred. If you don’t want to get an automobile, just say so, but don’t try to make fun of things you can’t possibly understand!
Maxwell
But, Nellie—
Helen
It’s hard enough for me to put up with your staying home and lying around and reading the paper while I go out night after night without you, and wear myself out at the Settlement and the Ferrer School and making speeches and addresses and everything in the subway and back in it, and losing, all the elation and social consciousness and everything, without having Anarchism and beauty and truth and everything that really means anything to anybody who tries really to think just made a joke of!
Maxwell
Good heavens, Nellie, I’m perfectly willing to buy the automobile; and I’m not criticising any of your hobbies! I—
Helen
Hobbies! Does one wear one’s self out for a hobby? Does one die for a hobby? Is the vote a hobby? Is the Woman’s Movement a hobby? Is Futurism a hobby? Is the Church of the Social Revolution a hobby? Is preaching the great truths of sex to one’s unborn children a hobby? Is—
Maxwell
All right, all right; let me slip in a word, won’t you? I’m not knocking any of your—devotions. I’ll get the automobile if you want it. I simply want you to make up your mind whether you want me to get it, or to use the two thousand for a bungalow at Amaranth, or wherever that crazy summer colony is.
Helen
It would be lovely to have our own place at Amaranth—though I suppose you’d only come out for weekends—you know it’s the most wonderful place, with the most wonderful scenery, and only really interesting people are allowed there, poets and sculptors and people who really do things; and there’s to be a pageant this summer and Lionel Morris says he wants me to do my barefoot dance; but I do wish we had a car—it would be wonderful just to get into one’s own car all the time and go anywhere, and I could take parties of interesting people out on tours to Ellis Island and the Night Court—
Maxwell
The Night Court! Yes, I think if you run the car you will go on a tour to the Night Court pretty soon, and you’ll have a special cop to take care of you, too. But you decide to-night whether you want the car or the bungalow, see? I’m game to spend two thousand dollars on one or the other, but you’ve got to decide. (From the dining room comes the loud clink of the steam radiator.) There’s that radiator again! (The telephone bell rings.) And there’s the ’phone! (He goes into the dining room and is heard muttering and pounding at the radiator, which continues to clink. Helen goes to the telephone.)
Helen
Hello!... Yes; what is it?... Yes, I am Miss White. (She turns and looks nervously toward the dining room.) Yes, this is Mrs. Johnson, Sam. It’s all right; I know what he wants. Tell Mr. Morris to come right up. (Helen and Maxwell reënter the living room at the same time. The radiator still clinks, but less loudly, with longer intervals of silence.)
Helen
Max, Mr. Morris is coming up to take me to the Mortons’ studio warming.
Maxwell
Studio warming, hey? Well, I’m going down to get Ryan to come up and arrange a dining room warming. It’s no use telephoning to him; he’ll just promise to fix the radiator and then go back to his chair and fall asleep. I’ll go down and drag him up by the throat. (He goes out through the hall door, and is heard to open the outer door and speak to someone.) How are you, Mr. Morris? Walk right in! The madam’s waiting for you.
Lionel (off stage)
Ah, thank you, Mr. Johnson, thank you.
(Enter Lionel. He is a handsome, slender young man, very pale, with brown hair brushed straight back.)
Lionel (lifting both of Mrs. Johnson’s hands to his lips)
Ah, Miss White! Dear Comrade White!
(This hand-kissing and dearing business leads the audience to think that Mr. Lionel Morris is the villain of the play, a destroyer of homes, a desperate character. As a matter of fact, he is nothing of the sort. He is quite harmless, being a sociable young man of limited education who likes to take part in those radical movements which attract women. He writes obscene poetry and paints pictures and makes sculptures that would be disgusting if they were not so funny. He is a rather interesting hybrid, being part donkey and part tame cat.)
Helen
Dear Comrade Lionel! See where I put your “Emancipation of Woman.”
(She leads him to the purple statue.)
Lionel
Ah! I never can interest myself in any of my work that is more than a day old. A poem or a picture that I have made bores me when the first flush of creation has passed. I feel toward it as I suppose a father felt toward his children, in those mediæval days when one had children. (He touches the outstretched hand of the statue.) But, dear Comrade White! Why do you make my “Emancipation of Woman” live with a Hiroshige colour print? A Toyokune I can endure, but a Hiroshige absolutely spoils the melody of her composition. Better the soft lyrical wall for a background, or perhaps a simple hanging of passionate black satin. Do you mind if I take this abomination down?
Helen
Surely, surely; you are always so right about everything! Do change anything and everything that will make it more comfortable for your wonderful statue. She has meant so much to me since she came....
Lionel
I know, dear comrade.
(He has moved the pianola bench to the wall and is standing on it taking down the Japanese print when Maxwell and John Ryan come in. Ryan is a janitor, and looks like a janitor. He is in his shirt sleeves and wears a battered black derby. He is smoking—no, not a short clay pipe!—a cigarette. He takes off his hat when he sees Mrs. Johnson, but instantly replaces it.)
Maxwell (as he leads Ryan to the dining room)
Come in here, Ryan. Did you bring your monkey wrench with you?
(Ryan mutters something unintelligible. They go out into the dining room, from which come occasional murmurs of conversation and sounds of hammering.)
Lionel (from the pianola bench)
Do you know, I am not at all glad to see that man.
Helen
Who? Max?
Lionel
No, indeed! That dreadful janitor! Do you know, Miss White—that janitor—
Helen
Don’t talk so loud! Max doesn’t like me to be called “Miss White.” You know he’s funny and old-fashioned, and though he’s willing for me to be a Feminist and to give money to the cause and everything, it makes him positively rage to hear me called “Miss White.” I tell him that a woman doesn’t give up her soul and her name and everything like a chattel mortgage just because she’s married, but he says that I’ve got to be called “Mrs. Johnson” because I’m no more Miss White than he is.
Lionel (getting down from the bench and putting the colour print on the pianola)
Ah, well, he’ll wake up one of these days and learn what Feminism really is. Even the business men must wake up some time. There was a broker that marched beside me in the suffrage parade this year—a broker or a pawnbroker, I never know which is which.
Helen
But what about Ryan? Why don’t you like him?
Lionel
That janitor! Do you know, he is simply a degenerate!
Helen
A degenerate? Like Lombroso?
Lionel
No. Worse than that. He actually has nine children! Last week when I went around with Comrade May Robinson Dannenberg and Comrade Rebecca Idleheimer selling “Plain Facts about a Great Evil” and working up enthusiasm for the suffrage rally at the Church of the Social Revolution, I made a special effort to interest the janitors and their wives. We went into every basement from here to 125th Street, and we saw some things that made my heart bleed. And in the basement of this very house I saw this man Ryan rocking a cradle and drinking beer out of a tin pail. His wife was cooking something disgusting on the gas stove and nursing a baby with her left hand. Comrade May Robinson Dannenberg was treated with absolute discourtesy by them; in fact, the woman told her to “go to hell”!
Helen
But then, those people, you know, they never do anything or read anything or anything. They are just like animals.
Lionel
Yes, but you and I have got to keep them from being animals! That’s what Social Consciousness means. I won’t say duty—I hate the word—but it’s your right to change the lives of those people and you absolutely must exercise that right, just as you absolutely must vote. There is that woman—a woman, the creature of all our dreaming—(He points to the statue.)—who might be out among the fields and the trees and the brooks and the birds and all the great and beautiful things of life, a sentient, social being; and what is she? What do we find her doing? Having a baby in a coalhole!
Helen
I see what you mean. That dreadful janitor! I know; I tried to get her to come to my class in the Ferrer School, and she said she had too much work to do.
Lionel
Exactly! Too much work to do! The thing that has crushed the souls and spirits and hearts of women throughout the generations! But we must stop all this. You must stop it. You must speak to the man—to Ryan—
Helen
I speak to Ryan? What shall I say to him? He won’t come to the Ferrer School.
Lionel
The Ferrer School must come to him! You must go to him and say: “Ryan, woman is no longer your bond slave! You must have no more babies. You are killing your wife with soul-deadening drudgery. No janitor should have children; no janitor should have a wife. You must put Mrs. Ryan in a model tenement somewhere, and let her lead a normal, intellectual life. Society will care for the children. There are plenty of places where they can go and be studied by scientists and develop, perhaps, into useful members of the community. You will do your work as before, but you must keep Mrs. Ryan away from this drudgery somewhere where she can really live her life.” Will you do this?
Helen
Why, yes, I suppose I ought to.... (She picks up her cloak which has been lying on a chair and puts it on, with Lionel’s assistance.) It’s time we started, isn’t it? But wait a minute! Max!
Maxwell (coming in from the dining room)
Going? I hope you have a good time.
Helen
Yes, we’re going, but, Max, I want you to do something for me. You know Ryan better than I do and you can talk to him. Mr. Morris says that he’s been abusing his wife, and he thinks we ought to get him to put her into a model tenement where she can develop her soul. He’s been overworking her and all that sort of thing, so you talk to him about it, will you? Mr. Morris knows a place where she can go, and we can put the children somewhere, and he can go on with his work, and it will be better for everybody. So you talk to him about it, will you?
Maxwell
Ryan? Abusing Mrs. Ryan? Good heavens, I had no idea of this. Of course I’ll talk to him about it. I’ll put a stop to that, Nellie. Good-bye. Enjoy yourself. And you talk over that plan of ours with Mr. Morris and decide whether you want a bungalow or an automobile.
Helen and Maxwell
Good-bye.
(They go out. Ryan comes in from the dining room.)
Ryan
I guess that radiator’ll be all right now, Mr. Johnson. There was a lot of air in the pipe and the valve was rusted tight, so I had a little trouble loosening it up.
(He starts out.)
Maxwell (frowning and looking at the floor)
Wait a minute, Ryan. I want to talk to you about something. (Ryan comes toward him and stands waiting.) Ryan, I hear—don’t you think—er—will you have a cigar?
Ryan
Why, yes, thanks.
(Maxwell goes into the dining room and brings out a humidor. He places it by the lamp on the table and opens it. Both men take cigars and light them.)
Maxwell
Ryan, what I want to talk to you about is the way in which you—it’s about what I hear about the way you—Sit down, sit down!
(He sits on the chaise-longue and Ryan, looking somewhat puzzled, sits on a chair on the other side of the table.)
Ryan
What was it you want to see me about, Mr. Johnson? Any complaint?
Maxwell
Oh, no, not at all! Or, rather, yes, I have a complaint. It’s rather a hard thing. I must say I’m surprised to hear about the way you treat your wife.
Ryan (rising from his chair)
What are you trying to give me? You mind—
Maxwell
Now, that’s all right, Ryan; I’m not trying to start anything. I’ve lived in this apartment for five years and you know me. But they’ve been telling me that you don’t treat your wife right, and I thought I’d tell you about it.
Ryan
Anybody that told you that, Mr. Johnson, is a liar, I don’t care if it’s man, woman or child.
Maxwell
Now, Ryan, will you just listen to me for a minute? This thing was sort of put up to me, and I’ve got to do it. Probably these people are all wrong. Just sit down and talk to me a minute. Have a drink?
Ryan (sulkily, sitting down again)
Yes, thanks. (Maxwell brings in from the dining room a bottle, a siphon and two glasses.) Ain’t you got any ice?
Maxwell
Oh, yes, that’s right.
(He goes into the dining room again and comes back with a plate of cracked ice. Meanwhile Ryan pockets several cigars and pours a generous portion of whiskey into the glasses. Maxwell sits down again, and as the men talk they drink, refilling their glasses from time to time.)
Ryan
Now just what did these fresh guys say about me, Mr. Johnson? You know there’s such a thing as a libel law in these here United States.
Maxwell
Well, I’ll tell you, Ryan. I don’t know whether there’s anything in it or not, and these people may have it all wrong, but they said that you were treating Mrs. Ryan very badly.
Ryan
I beat her up, I suppose?
Maxwell
No, they didn’t say anything like that. It’s this way, Ryan: These people are making a sort of special study of people that work hard for a living, and they say—I don’t know whether they’re right or not—that you’re not treating Mrs. Ryan right to make her work so hard and have so many children and all that sort of thing.
Ryan
Mr. Johnson, if any man but you was talking to me like that, I’d knock his block off, the big boob! Why, whose business is it how many children I have? What do they expect she’s going to do? Lie on a couch an’ have me bring her ice cream all day long? I been married thirteen years next month, an’ if anybody wants to know how I treat my wife I refer them to her, I do.
Maxwell
Well, Ryan, as I said, I’m inclined to think that these people that were talking to me were a bit hasty. But see here; listen to me a minute. These people want to do you a good turn. You’ll admit, I suppose, that it isn’t the finest life in the world for Mrs. Ryan to be staying down there in the basement all day and all night washing clothes and cooking meals and tending to the children. She’s sick every now and then, isn’t she?
Ryan
Now and then.
Maxwell
Well, the idea is this: These people are what they call philanthropists—that is, they’re trying to make the world better, to make people happier. Now, they’ve built a very nice tenement house; it’s called a model tenement; it’s almost as good an apartment house to live in as this one. What they say is, that you can put Mrs. Ryan there, in a nice suite of rooms, with hot and cold water and a bathroom and electric light and everything for very little money—say five dollars a week. You can come there to sleep nights and you can get your breakfast and supper there with her in what they call the community dining room. You see, they do all the cooking for you and charge you just what the food costs for the meals. Your wife won’t have any more cooking to do, and they’ll give you better meals in that dining room than you’ve ever had before, believe me.
Ryan
I see. What about the washing?
Maxwell
Well, they have a big laundry in the place and do all your washing for you for about half what a regular laundry would cost you. That sounds like a pretty good thing, doesn’t it?
Ryan
A pretty good thing, and I suppose there’s nursemaids and governesses for all the children, too, hey?
Maxwell
Why, as a matter of fact there are—but not exactly in the way you mean. You see, they run a sort of a boarding school, too, the people that run this model tenement do, and they take care of all the children there—keep ’em night and day, feed ’em and dress ’em and teach ’em trades and all that sort of thing. They let them come to see you on Sunday, but you’re relieved of all responsibility and your wife of all the trouble.
Ryan
I see. But what’s to become of my job when I’m going off to this here model tenement to sleep nights? Don’t you know that a janitor has to sleep in the building he’s taking care of?
Maxwell
Well, you’re not in love with your job, are you? You’d be willing to do some other work where there was a chance of advancement and better pay, wouldn’t you?
Ryan
Sure I would. Where am I going to get it?
Maxwell
Why, as to that, I guess Mr. Morris or I could get you a job somewhere. You’re a big husky fellow and pretty steady, I know. I could get you a job in the shipping department of a factory I am interested in, if you wanted it.
Ryan
What would the hours be?
Maxwell (laughing)
Why, you’re going pretty fast, Ryan. I don’t know just what the hours would be yet, but I suppose they’d be from half past eight to six or something like that. That’s easier than your hours now, isn’t it?
Ryan
Much easier. Now, what has all this got to do with my wife having too many children?
Maxwell
Why, these people think that Mrs. Ryan has had too many children. Some of these people are doctors, and they say it’s bad for a woman’s health to have so many children.
Ryan
I see. Well, what would you like to have me do about it?
Maxwell
About the model tenement?
Ryan
No, about my wife having any more children.
Maxwell
Well, you know—you see I’m not—what they think is— Oh, damn it, I don’t know about this part of the thing, Ryan. It’s out of my line. I’m not a philanthropist. I’m just talking for these people because they know I know you. About that question you’ll have to talk to Mrs. Dannenberg or Mr. Morris.
Ryan
Mr. Morris—he’s the little guy that was standing on a chair when I came in to-night, ain’t he?
Maxwell
Yes.
Ryan
Is he a doctor?
Maxwell
No, I don’t think he is.
Ryan
He came into my place the other day selling some sort of a little doctor book.
Maxwell
I know; he does that because he’s a philanthropist.
Ryan
Do people make a living by being philanthropists?
Maxwell
No—well, as a matter of fact, many people do make a pretty fat living out of it, but Mr. Morris doesn’t. He’s a sculptor—a man that makes statues, you know.
Ryan
Oh, I know what a sculptor is, all right. What statues did Mr. Morris make?
Maxwell
Why, he made that statue over in the corner, for one thing.
(Ryan goes over and examines the purple statue.)
Ryan
Do you like this statue, Mr. Johnson?
Maxwell (laughing)
I’m not a judge of such things, Ryan. But people who know about art say that it’s very good indeed.
Ryan
Is it a good likeness?
Maxwell
It’s not supposed to be a portrait; it’s a sort of a fancy statue. It represents the “Emancipation of Woman”—woman freed, you know.
Ryan
Freed from what?
Maxwell
Why, from overwork, and excessive child-bearing and all that sort of thing, you know.
Ryan
Well, that lady’s freed from child-bearing, all right. She’s perfectly safe on that score. (He goes back to his chair and pours out another drink.) But now let’s get back to your friends’ proposition. I’m to get a day job and come home nights—is that right?
Maxwell
That’s right.
Ryan
The children are taken off my wife’s hands, and she doesn’t have to do any more cooking or washing or anything, hey?
Maxwell
That’s it, Ryan.
Ryan
And the place we’d live would be pretty much like this apartment, would it?
Maxwell
Just as comfortable, at any rate.
Ryan
My wife would have no work to do; I’d work in the daytime and come home nights—there’d be no kids to take care of—it would be pretty much like the life that you and your wife have, wouldn’t it, Mr. Johnson?
Maxwell
Ah—why, yes, Ryan, pretty much the same. What do you think of the proposition?
Ryan
Well, I’ll tell you. Of course I wouldn’t like to have the children go away—though they are a lot of trouble—but I suppose they’d be better taken care of than we could do, so, if that was all there was to it, I’d say go ahead. And it’d be all right for me, too, if I was a bachelor. But it’s on account of my wife that I feel I’ve got to say, “Excuse me!”
Maxwell
Why, you don’t begrudge your wife a little rest, do you, Ryan?
Ryan
Would I begrudge the old woman a little rest? Yes, by God, I would, if a little rest meant having nothing to do all day except sit around and talk to her friends and run around town. It’s just on that account that I say nix to your whole proposition. Now you think I’m a slave driver, I suppose. Well, I ain’t, Mr. Johnson, but I’ve lived with a woman thirteen years, and what I’m telling you I didn’t get out of no books—it’s facts!
Listen, Mr. Johnson. What you want us to do is to live just the sort of life that you and your wife live—no children to take care of, no washing nor cooking nor nothing. Well, what I say is, excuse me! That may be all right for you and your wife—she don’t need no housework nor children nor nothing to keep her busy. Her time is full of all sorts of useful things—I know that. (Maxwell stirs uneasily and looks at the floor.) But with Annie, my wife, it’s a different proposition altogether. She’s one of them women—and there’s a lot more of them than you think—that can’t stand living in a nice regular apartment with nothing to do. I know because we tried it when we was first married. It’s like what the old fellow said: “Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do”!
Maxwell
True enough! And—
Ryan
Listen, Mr. Johnson. When we was first married, Annie was one of these here idle hands they tell of. She was an idle hand for three years, and Satan, as the old fellow said, certainly found some mischief for her to do. Not anything real bad—there’s no real harm in Annie—but it was mischief all right. For the first three years we was living in a nice apartment in Brooklyn. I wasn’t a janitor, then; I was driving a truck. I was out all day and I got home every night at six or seven o’clock. All Annie has to do is to get my breakfast and supper and keep the place clean. Does she do it? Sure she does, for the first four or five weeks! Then she gets to making friends with other women in the building and going out to matinees and vaudeville and all that sort of thing. That’s all right—I can afford it—I don’t care if she has a good time; but then what does she do? I give her two dollars in the morning to go out and buy a good supper for me when I come home. I come home and she ain’t in yet, and the lady in the next flat gives me the groceries that she’s sent home. And what is they? A little chipped beef and a box of Saratoga chips and some baker’s bread. About fifty-cent’s worth. When she gets home I ask her where she’s been. Why, Mrs. Eindorfer has took her to a spiritualist meeting, and she’s spent the rest of that money to look into a glass ball or have her fortune told or some such foolishness.
Now this goes on for nearly three years. It ain’t all spiritualists’ meetings; it’s all sorts of things. She makes all sorts of friends, women and men, too; I had to beat a couple of ’em up. The flat wasn’t kept up; I run into debt; my meals wasn’t cooked right or on time, and Annie was half sick all the time just from running around entertaining herself. I ain’t blaming her. She wasn’t to blame. And what was to blame? The apartment house was to blame. When Peter was born, after we’d been married three years, and I gave up trucking and moved out of that apartment house and got a job as janitor, everything was all right. And everything’s been all right ever since.
Maxwell (thoughtfully)
And the apartment house was to blame?
Ryan
Believe me, Mr. Johnson, the only part of an apartment house to live in is the basement, where you can have a regular home. I been a janitor for ten years, and I seen these apartment houses do queer things to families. They don’t seem to have no children when they live in apartment houses, that’s one thing. And there ain’t no coal to bring up and the washing goes out, and there ain’t nothing for them to do but just make fools of themselves. And sometimes there’s a good many divorces been caused by these here apartment houses. And there’d be a good many more divorces if a lot of husbands knew what went on when they was downtown at business.
Understand me, Mr. Johnson. I don’t mean you and your wife at all. You ain’t that sort of people, but what I do say is for my wife, and for a lot of women with more education and more money than she’s got, the only sort of life is doing housework and taking care of children all day long. So Annie and me will stay down in the basement, much obliged to you, unless we go out of New York to live in a little house in the country sometime. And Annie’ll have just as much work to do there. She’s one of them women that wasn’t meant to be idle. And now I guess I’ll go downstairs.
(He rises and goes toward the door. Maxwell sits silent for a moment and then rises a little unsteadily. He holds out his hand to Ryan for a second and then drops it and starts.)
Maxwell
Ryan, I—er—why, I guess you’re right, after all. I’ll tell my friends what you said.
Ryan
All right. No hard feelings, I hope.
Maxwell
Not at all; that’s all right. Good night, Ryan.
Ryan
Good night, Mr. Johnson.
(He goes out.)
Maxwell
There’s a man that’s master in his own home, at any rate. (He lights a cigar and walks around the room with his hands in his trousers pockets, coming to a halt in front of the purple statue. He looks at it reflectively.) Satan finds some mischief still—(A pause)—for idle hands to do. For idle hands to do. For idle hands to do. For idle hands—
(The doorbell is rung violently. Maxwell starts and runs out into the hall. He returns with Helen, who is very much out of breath. As she runs into the room the combs drop from her hair, which falls over her face and shoulders. She throws herself on the chaise-longue. Maxwell sits beside her and tries to push her hair back from her face.)
Nellie! What’s the matter?
(Helen sobs without answering.)
Helen
It’s those nasty Martins and that nasty policeman and that nasty Lionel Morris.
(The bell rings again. Maxwell goes to the door and admits Lionel.)
Lionel
Oh, I’m awfully glad you got back all right, Miss White. I jumped into a taxi as soon as that brute of a policeman came, and then I met all the rest of the crowd at the studio and everybody said, “Where’s Miss White?” So I came right up here to find out if you’d got home.
Maxwell
For God’s sake, will somebody tell me what’s happened?
Lionel (sitting on the pianola bench)
Why, you see—
Helen
Be still. You see, Max, we were all at the Mortons’ studio, and Adrian Wolfe made a speech about those nasty striking miners in California or wherever it is that everybody is wearing mourning for and parading and all that and this—and Mr. Morris said: “Let’s walk up to Union Square and hold an open air meeting to protest.” So we went up there and I made a speech and there was a crowd and I saw a policeman there, but I thought it would be all right, and then Mr. Morris made a speech and he said something about trampling on a bloodstained flag, and the policeman told him to stop, and he called the policeman a myrmidon, and some more policemen came and broke up the meeting, and he ran away and wouldn’t help me; and I ran down into the subway, and I don’t see how he dares show his face in here!
Maxwell
I’ll talk to him presently, but quiet down a little. You’d better go in your room and fix up your hair.
(Helen rises to go out. She stops in the doorway and turns to Maxwell.)
Helen
I won’t go to that nasty Amaranth this summer, Maxwell.
Maxwell
No, you won’t go to Amaranth.
Helen
Then will you get an automobile?
Maxwell
No, I won’t get an automobile.
Helen
Then what—
Maxwell
I am going to take that two thousand dollars and buy, with the assistance of the building and loan association, a small house in a city called Joplin, in the State of Missouri. It will not be a large house, but I think that you will not find the time hanging heavy on your hands. My brother has a wholesale grocery there, and I dare say he will take me into the business, especially as I have a little money to invest. And I’ll come home to luncheon every day. Missouri is a fertile State. My brother has six children.
Lionel
But, Miss White—Mr. Johnson!
(Helen goes down the hall to her room. Maxwell walks up to Lionel.)
Maxwell
My wife’s name is not Miss White but Mrs. Johnson—Mrs. Maxwell Johnson, of Joplin, Missouri. Get that? Do you know what keeps me from dropping you down the elevator shaft?
Lionel
What—what do you mean?
Maxwell
It’s the janitor. Yes, Ryan, the fellow down in the basement with nine children that you and Mrs. What’s-her-name wanted to segregate. He told me all about you to-night. You’re nothing but a by-product! The apartment house is the real devil in this pretty little play—the apartment house is responsible for Feminism and Socialism and Anarchism and Eugenics and pups like you. You’re just a sort of bad substitute for the movies—that’s all you are. The apartment house breeds the whole bunch of you—the apartment house and its artificial, lazy, good-for-nothing life.
(Lionel starts toward the door hurriedly, but stops as if shot when the telephone bell rings close to his ear. He comes back into the room and Maxwell goes to the telephone.)
Maxwell
Hello!... What’s that?... Yes, this is Mr. Johnson.... No, I don’t think so. Hold the wire and I’ll see. (With his hand over the transmitter he looks into the room.) Nellie!
Helen (coming into the living room with her hair in a long braid, wearing a blue tea gown)
Yes, Max?
Maxwell
What is your name?
Helen
Why, Helen, of course, stupid.
Maxwell
Helen what?
Helen
Helen Johnson.
Maxwell
Not Miss Helen White?
Helen
No! No! No!
Maxwell (smiling)
Well, that’s all right, then. There’s a cop down-stairs with a warrant for the arrest of a Miss Helen White and a Mr. Lionel Morris, charged with making incendiary speeches in Union Square. They think that Morris’s taxicab stopped at this building, and the policeman is going through all the apartments. He’ll be here in a minute. (In the receiver.) All right, Sam, it’s all right. Thanks for tipping me off. (Maxwell reënters the room and sits on the pianola bench. Helen reclines, with some dignity, on the chaise-longue. Lionel crouches behind the purple statue.)
Maxwell (meditatively)
Satan finds some mischief still—
Helen
What are you saying, Max?
Maxwell
Oh, I was just thinking of the janitor. I had quite a talk with him after you left.
(The doorbell rings, and Maxwell admits a large policeman.)
Policeman
Excuse me, sir; it’s just a matter of form. I’m looking for a couple of them Anarchist-Suffrage-I. W. W. bugs. It’s just a matter of form. The man’s name is Lionel Morris and the woman’s name is Helen White. Are you Lionel Morris?
Maxwell
No; my name is Maxwell Johnson. The janitor knows me, and so do a lot of people in the building.
Policeman
Thank you, sir. It’s just a matter of form. Now, madam—it’s just a matter of form—are you Helen White?
Helen
No, I am not Helen White. I am Mrs. Maxwell Johnson.
Policeman
Thank you, madam, thank you; it’s just a matter of form. You see these parties is incendiaries; they called me a mermaiden. Now, just two more questions—it’s just a matter of form: Is Miss Helen White here?
Helen
No, Helen White is not here.
Maxwell
And I’m glad she isn’t here, officer.
Policeman
You may well be that, sir; you may well be that. Now, is Lionel Morris here?
(There is a pause, during which the purple statue shakes slightly.)
Maxwell
Well, what do you think about it, officer? Take a look around the place. Want to look in the dumb waiter or down the kitchen sink?
Policeman
Oh, I know he’s not here, Mr. Johnson, and I’m sorry to have troubled you. Much obliged to you. Good night, sir.
Maxwell
Have a drink before you go?
Policeman
Well, I hadn’t ought to, but I guess I will, thanks.
(Helen pours the whiskey and Maxwell and the policeman lift their glasses.)
Policeman
Well, here’s how, sir.
Maxwell
Here’s Joplin!
Helen
Oh, I’ll drink that.
(She takes a sip from Maxwell’s glass.)
Policeman
What’s that, something new?
Maxwell
No, it’s old as Adam and Eve.
Policeman
Well, it’s a new one on me. Thank you, sir. Good night.
Maxwell
Good night. (The policeman goes out. After the door slams shut, Lionel stands up, but remains behind the purple statue.) Hadn’t you better go to some other apartment house? The cop’s gone down the elevator. He’ll be gone by the time you get downstairs. (Lionel goes out and as he turns he brushes against the purple statue, which topples on its pedestal. He bangs the door shut after him violently, and the statue falls to the floor and breaks into several pieces. Maxwell and Helen look at it for a moment and then turn to each other and laugh.)
Helen
Oh, look what’s happened to the “Emancipation of Woman”!
CURTAIN