Produced by Tim Lindell, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) THE TRYSTING PLACE THE TRYSTING PLACE _A Farce in One Act_ _By_ BOOTH TARKINGTON [Illustration] New York SAMUEL FRENCH Publisher 25 West 45th Street London SAMUEL FRENCH, LTD. Publisher 26 Southampton St., Strand COPYRIGHT, 1923 BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY _All rights reserved_ The professional stage rights of this play are reserved by the Author. The amateur stage rights are held by the Ladies Home Journal. For permission to produce the play application should be made by professional producers to Mr. Booth Tarkington, Indianapolis, Indiana, and by amateur producers to the Editor of the Ladies Home Journal. Printed in the United States of America THE PEOPLE AS THEY COME INTO THE PLAY MRS. CURTIS, _The Young Woman, twenty-five or perhaps even a little older_. LANCELOT BRIGGS, _The Boy, slim and obviously under twenty_. MRS. BRIGGS, _his mother, a handsome woman of forty-five or fifty_. JESSIE, _his sister, a pretty girl of about twenty_. RUPERT SMITH, _The Young Man, about twenty-five_. MR. INGOLDSBY, _a man of fifty-five or, possibly, sixty_. THE MYSTERIOUS VOICE, _male and adult_. [Illustration] THE TRYSTING PLACE _The scene is a room just off the “lounge” of a hotel in the country. However, this is not a “country hotel;” but, on the contrary, one of those vast and elaborate houses of entertainment that affect an expensive simplicity in what is called the colonial manner, and ask to be visited--by those financially able to do so--in the general interest of health and the outdoor life. The wall at the back of the stage is broken only by symmetrically spaced pilasters of an ivory color; each of the side walls is broken in the same manner; but here the pilasters help to frame two rather broad entrances, one at the right and one at the left, and beyond these entrances, on both sides, we have glimpses of the two corridors that lead to them. There are a few old prints--or new prints from old plates--upon the walls; and there are flowering plants on stands in the corners. The furniture consists of some chintz-covered easy-chairs, a light wicker settee with a chintz cushion and a valance that reaches the floor; and there are two wicker tables with a vase of jonquils upon each of them. In the rear right-hand corner of the room, near the stand of plants, there is a tropical-looking chair, wicker, with a back of monstrous size--a Philippine Island chair--and in the opposite corner is its mate._