IT WILL NEVER BE PLAYED!

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume V, Issue 450, 12 November 1880, Page 3

IT WILL NEVER BE PLAYED!

" By gum!" Mr.arid Mrs Defeo sat before* cheerful fire in their home the other evening. There s'ißtl been (a long period of silence,when Mr Defoe suddenly exclaimed as above. " What is it, dear ? " elie responded. "Say, we've got tired of playing games, and what do you nay to private theatricals ?" "How?" " Why, we'll get three er four of the neighbours to join in and we'll meet at •each other's houses and have regulnr plays: , ' "That- will be splendid 1" she gasped. " " Hanged if it won't \ Wonder we never thought of it before. Twenty dollars will get ■Uβ all the scenery we want, and e«ch one can furnish his own wardrobe. By gum ! we've got the Me* now J" " What sort of a play could we play ?' she asked, as he inarched tip and down ■with tragic step. " I have it—aha!" he'eichimod, ac he, stopped ehort. Don't you remember I started to write a play about five years ago? I'll finish it and we'll bring it out; Now let's ccc how the characters run. There is the Count Dumdcff, who in in lovo with Genddine the Fair. I'll be the Count, of courae, as he ia the hero. He kills four men, rescues Goraldino from several dangers, and there is a good deal of kinaing and-love-making and a happy marriage I" 41 And I'lJ Uβ Gera'dinc " v You !" Oh, you couldn't play that part She must be young and vivacioup. Let'e see ?*' I think I'll ca*t you for Hannah who keeps a bakery r.car a park in Paris." . ■ " I'd like to see myself playing Hannah in a bakery, I would 4" el«s defiantly answered.;,-" Ifjjoa cancplny Dumdoffi I know I can play Geraldine," " Oh, no you can't, my love. You are a llttlejstiff in the knees, and how you'd look throwing yourself into my arms ns the villains puraue. I eUali cast that little Widow D. f<»r Gernldine," " Then thore'll "be two Geraldines of us! If you can play Dunidoffi with your lame back and cattarU. I know I can play Geraldine with this lameaess in my left knee." " Now you listen to reason Mrs Defoe. You aren't built for Geraldine ; you are too fat; your feet are too large; you haven't got the voice for it." " And ybu'd make a pretty Count Dumdoff, you would?" she fired back/ "You want to get that crook out of your back t that bald head shingled over, your mouth repaired andyour eyes touched up with a paint-brush! I think I see you killing four villains—halhalha!" : •• Woman I do not anger me 1" he said, in a deep-toned voice, as he rose up. " And don't you anger your Geraldine, either !" '• Ueraldine 1 Why you don't know a sky-border from a flat 1" "Dumdoff! And you don't know a Skye terrier from the bigfiddle in the orchestra!" '. . .

m "3Jie well ! We'll have no playing J her*!" ft »Then you needn't! When I play ■ Hannah in a bakery to let yoti hug and kiss the widow D. or any other woman all over the stage you'll bo three or four CoiTJt Dumdoffa !" •' < "111 burn the play, jealous woman!" " If you don't I will, vain man.!" Then they sat down and resumed their former occupation of looking into the fire, and the disturbed cat went back to her rug and her dreams.— Detroit Free ■ Press.