The Vegetable; or, From President to PostmanFitzgerald, F. Scott (Francis Scott)
General
The Vegetable; or, From President to Postman
Fitzgerald, F. Scott (Francis Scott)
American drama -- 20th century
CHARLOTTE [_to Doris_]. He doesn’t care. He doesn’t even understand what
it’s all about. When the detective searched his bedroom he thought it
was the plumber.
DORIS. He understands. Sure you do, don’t you, Dada? You understand what
it’s all about, don’t you, Dada?
DADA [_aggravatingly_]. The----?
CHARLOTTE. Oh, let him go. He makes me nervous.
DORIS. Maybe he could think out some place where Jerry’s gone. He’s
supposed to _think_ so much.
DADA. Well, good afternoon. I think I’ll go down to the library. [_Dada
goes out by the front door._]
DORIS. Listen, Charlotte. I was going to tell you about Joseph--to get
your mind off yourself, don’t you remember?
CHARLOTTE. Yes.
DORIS. I’ve gotten sort of tired of him. Honestly, I ought to get myself
psychoanalyzed.
CHARLOTTE. Why don’t you throw him over then? You ought to know how by
this time.
DORIS. Of course, having been unlucky in your own marriageable
experience, you aren’t in a position to judge what I should do.
CHARLOTTE. Do you love him?
DORIS. Well, not--not especially.
CHARLOTTE. Then throw him over.
DORIS. I would--except for one thing. You see, it’d be sort of hard.
CHARLOTTE. No, it wouldn’t.
DORIS. Yes, it would. It wouldn’t be any cinch.
CHARLOTTE. Why?
DORIS. Well, you see I’ve been married to him for three days.
CHARLOTTE [_astounded_]. What!
DORIS. That isn’t very long, but you see in marriage every day counts.
CHARLOTTE. Well, then, you can’t throw him over.
DORIS. It’s next to impossible, I guess.
CHARLOTTE. Was it a secret marriage?
DORIS. Yes, there was nobody there but I and Joseph and the fella that
did it. And I’m still living at home. You see, this girl that Joe was
keeping waiting to see whether he was going to marry me or not, got
impatient, and said she couldn’t be kept waiting any longer. It made her
sort of nervous. She couldn’t eat her meals.
CHARLOTTE. So you got married. And now you’re tired of him.
DORIS. No, not exactly that, but it just sort of makes me uncomfortable,
Charlotte, to know that you can’t throw over the man you’ve got without
causing a lot of talk. Suppose he took to drink or something. You know
everybody can’t get rid of their husbands as easy as you did.
CHARLOTTE. One husband was always enough for me.
DORIS. One may be all right for you, Charlotte, because you’re a
monographist, but supposing Rudolph Valentino, or the Prince of Wales,
or John D. Rockefeller was to walk in here and say: “Doris, I’ve
worshipped you from a distance on account of the picture that you sent
to the fame and fortune contest of the movie magazine, that got left out
by accident or lost or something. Will you marry me?” What would you
say, Charlotte?
CHARLOTTE. I’d say no. I’d say, give me back Jerry.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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