Well, John, I trust you broke no bones. Did you Caution that candle-eater what we’ll do If one more Hebrew they annoy? Does he Clearly perceive they’ll have to deal with Me? HAY: Well, I should say so! Sir, I plainly said You’d heap their land with tumuli of dead; Hang by the heels the Czar until he’d weep His shoes full; load the sanguinary deep With battleships until ’twould overwhelm The seaboard cities of their monkey realm; Encumber it with wrecks and floating carcasses! ROOSEVELT: That programme is more strenuous than Marcus’s— Hanna, my master. _He_ would never dare To twist the tail of the fierce Russian bear. I’m big enough to tackle any brute! [_Exit Roosevelt._] HAY (_solus_): I too am quite a sizable galoot. POST MORTEM _The President._ _Miles, Commander of the Army._ _Root, Secretary of War._ _Loeb, Private Secretary to President._ _Hull, Chairman of Committee on Military Affairs._ _An Orderly._ ACT I _Headquarters of the Army._ MILES (_in bed_): What ho, there! orderly—I say, I say! Bring in my breakfast. What’s the time o’ day? What? six o’clock!—and day’s already broke? I’m too late to escape him. Holy smoke! I think I hear his footstep on the stair— But no, it is not his: there is no blare Of a great trumpet strenuously blown— That veritable _tuba mirum_ known To have sounded once the charge at Kettle Hill (After ’twas made) and to be sounding still. ORDERLY: Perhaps he will not come. MILES: Perhaps, perhaps— Yet well I know those War Department chaps Have told him of my novel plan that places The Army on a military basis. Ne’er mind the breakfast; I’ll get up and fly Before the sun’s another minute high. If I can by a masterly retreat Escape him trust me to come back and eat. ORDERLY: There’s some one, sir, a-tryin’ to break in. MILES: O Lord, forgive my every little sin! Seeing that I was going to be late Developing my Plan, he would not wait, He’s risen with the lark, alas, and brought His answer to my unperfected thought. He always was forehanded. [_Enter President._] PRESIDENT: I’ve no time To let the punishment await the crime. Take that, and that, and that! (_beating him._) MILES: