They ultimately go out
again. Applause. Enter_ CLAUDE, _his_ MOTHER, _and_ PAULINE.
_Mother_. "This young man is of poor but honest parents. Know you not
that you are wedded to my son, CLAUDE MELNOTTE?"
PAULINE. "Your son? Hold, hold me, somebody!"
CLAUDE. "Leave us, mutter. Have bity on us." (_The old lady leaves_.)
CLAUDE. "Now, lady, 'ear me."
PAULINE. "Hear thee? Her son! Do fiends usually indulge in the luxury of
parents? Speak!"
CLAUDE. "Gurse me. Thy gurse would plast me less than thy forgifeness."
(_He rants in broken English with unintelligible rapidity for next
half-hour, until his mother puts an end to the universal misery by
carrying Pauline off to bed. Curtain_.)
_Young Lady, who reads Dickens_. "Oh, how sweetly pretty!"
_Accompanying Young Man_. "Yes. He is even a better actor than MCKEAN
BUCHANAN."
_Voices from all Parts of the House. "Let's go home. I can't stand two
more acts of this sort of thing."_
One of these voices was the soft, silvery and modest voice of MATADOR,
who went out, and sitting upon a convenient hydrant, (not one of the
infamous cast-iron abortions with an unpleasant knob on the cover,)
contemplated the midnight stars, and seriously meditated upon Mr.
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