[_Taking her hand._] Oh, Georgiana! GEORGIANA. On one condition--that you'll admit there's no harm in our laughing at a Sporting Dean. THE DEAN. No, no--I cannot allow it! GEORGIANA. Tris! My brother Gus doesn't want us to be merry at his expense. [_They both laugh._ THE DEAN. [_Trying to silence them._] No, no! I forbid it! Hush! SIR TRISTRAM. Why, Jedd, there's no harm in laughter, for those who laugh or those who are laughed at. GEORGIANA. Provided always--firstly, that it is Folly that is laughed at and not Virtue; secondly, that it is our friends who laugh at us, [_to the audience_] as we hope they all will, for our pains. THE END _Transcriber's Note_ This transcription is based on the scan images posted by The Internet Archive at: http://archive.org/details/dandydickplayint00pinerich In addition, when there was a question about the printed text, another edition posted by The Internet Archive was consulted: http://archive.org/details/dandydickplayint00pineiala The following changes were made to the text: - Throughout the text, dashes at the end of lines have been normalized. - Throughout the text, "and" in the character titles preceding dialogue has been italicized consistently and names in stage directions have been consistently either capitalized (in the text version) or set in small caps (in the html version). - In the Introductory Note, “St. Marvells” has an apostrophe, whereas in the text of the play it almost always does not. The inconsistency has been allowed to stand in the Introductory Note, but the apostrophe has been removed in the few instances in the text. - Pg. 25: "_THE DEAN gives DARBEY a severe look..._"--A bracket has been added to the beginning of this line. - Pg. 97: "No, Aunt, No!"--The second "No" has been changed to lower case. - Pg. 139: "Oh, what do you think of it. Mr. Darbey?"--The period after "it" has been changed to a comma. - Pg. 141: "We can't shout here, go and cheer..."--The comma has been changed to a semicolon. - Pg. 142: "That's Hatcham, I'll raise his wages."--The comma has been changed to a semicolon. - Pg. 143: "'aint" has been changed to "ain't". - Pg. 147: "...mutual esteem, last night..."--The comma has been changed to a semicolon. - Pg. 154: "I did it?" has been changed to "I did it!" The html version of this etext attempts to reproduce the layout of the printed text. However, some concessions have been made, particularly in the handling of stage directions enclosed by brackets on at least one side. (Entrances were usually without brackets.) In general, the stage directions were typeset in the printed text as follows: - Before and within dialogue. - Flush right, on the same line as the end of dialogue if there was enough space; on the next line, if there was not. - If the stage directions were two lines, they were indented from the left margin as hanging paragraphs. How much the stage directions were indented varied.