314
MAN WITH THE FLOWER IN HIS MOUTH
MAN WITH THE FLOWER: Ah!—I was just going to say! . . . So you are a good-natured sort of a fellow. . . . You lost your train?
THE CUSTOMER: By less than a minute. I get to the station—and there it is—just pulling out!
MAN WITH THE FLOWER: You might have caught it by running!
THE cUSTOMER: I suppose I might. It's absurd, I know. If I hadn't been all cluttered up with a dozen packages, more or less—huh! worse than a pack-horse! . . . Oh, these women! . . . One errand after another—world without end! Why, it took me three minutes, after I got out of my taxi, to get my fingers through the strings of all those packages! Two on every finger!
MAN WITH THE FLOWER: I'd like to have seen you! . . . You know what I would have done? I would have left the blamed things in the carriage!
THE CUSTOMER: And when you got home—eh? . . . How about the old woman—and my girls—not to mention those from the neighbourhood!
MAN WITH THE FLOWER: Let 'em shriek! . . . I'd have en- joyed it—I would!
THE CUSTOMER: Guess you don't know what it's like to have a brood of women with you on a vacation in the country!
MAN WITH THE FLOWER: Oh, I guess I do—in fact, I say so because I do. . . . (A pause.) They all say they won't need to take a blessed thing!
THE CUSTOMER: And you think they stop there? According to them, they go to the country to save money. . . . Well, the moment they get to some place out there, in the backwoods—the uglier it is, the dirtier it is, the more they insist on dressing up in all their Sunday togs. Oh—women, my dear sir! . . . But, after all, dressing is their profession! . . . "The next time you run into town, dear, I wish you'd stop in at So-and-So's. And then, if you don't mind, dear, on the way back—no trouble, is it, really—will you stop at my dress-makers and—" . . . and they're off! . . . "But how am I going to get all that done in three hours?" you say. . . . "Oh, that's easy, take a taxi!" . . . And the worst of it is, that in my hurry to get away, I forgot to take the keys of my house, here in town.
