Page:Heartbreak House, Great Catherine, and Playlets of the War.djvu/199

 Our lives are yours; but God knows you are not fit to die.

PATIOMKIN [absurdly self-possessed]. Get out.

THE SERGEANT. Little Father&mdash;

PATIOMKIN [roaring]. Get out. Get out, all of you. ''[They withdraw, much relieved at their escape from the pistol. Patiomkin attempts to rise, and rolls over.]'' Here! help me up, will you? Don't you see that I'm drunk and can't get up?

EDSTASTON [suspiciously]. You want to get hold of me.

PATIOMKIN [squatting resignedly against the chair on which his clothes hang]. Very well, then: I shall stay where I am, because I'm drunk and you're afraid of me.

EDSTASTON. I'm not afraid of you, damn you!

PATIOMKIN [ecstatically]. Darling, your lips are the gates of truth. Now listen to me. [He marks off the items of his statement with ridiculous stiff gestures of his head and arms, imitating a puppet.] You are Captain Whatshisname; and your uncle is the Earl of Whatdyecallum; and your father is Bishop of Thingummybob; and you are a young man of the highest spr&mdash;promise (I told you I was drunk), educated at Cambridge, and got your step as captain in the field at the GLORIOUS battle of Bunker's Hill. Invalided home from America at the request of Aunt Fanny, Lady-in-Waiting to the Queen. All right, eh?

EDSTASTON. How do you know all this?

PATIOMKIN [crowing fantastically]. In er lerrer, darling, darling, darling, darling. Lerrer you showed me.

EDSTASTON. But you didn't read it.

PATIOMKIN [flapping his fingers at him grotesquely]. Only one eye, darling. Cross eye. Sees everything. Read lerrer inceince-istastaneously. Kindly give me vinegar borle. Green borle. On'y to sober me. Too