Part 13 (1/2)

The orchestra did not laugh----

JACKSON

Because they were getting it, but the galleries did, because they were looking at the orchestra getting slapped. Your health, HE!

HE

Your's Jim! Tell me, why didn't you let me finish my speech--I was just getting a good start.

JACKSON

[_Seriously_]: My friend, because your speech was a sacrilege.

Politics--all right. Manners--as much as you want. But Providence--leave it in peace. And believe me, friend, I shut your mouth in time. Didn't I, Papa Briquet?

BRIQUET

[_Coming nearer_]: Yes. It was too much like literature. This is not an academy. You forget yourself, HE.

TILLY

But to shut one's mouth--faugh....

BRIQUET

[_In a didactic tone_]: Whenever one shuts one's mouth, it is always high time to shut it, unless one is drinking. Hey, whiskey and soda!

VOICES

Whiskey and soda for the Manager!

MANCINI

But this is obscurantism. Philosophizing again, Briquet?

BRIQUET

I am not satisfied with you to-day, HE. Why do you tease them? They don't like it. Your health! A good slap must be clean like a crystal--fft-fft! right side, left side, and done with it. They will like it; they will laugh, and love you. But in your slaps there is a certain bite, you understand, a certain smell----

HE

But they laughed, nevertheless!

BRIQUET

But without pleasure, without pleasure, HE. You pay, and immediately draw a draft on their bank; it's not the right game--they won't like you.

JACKSON

That's what _I_ tell him. He had already begun to make them angry.

BEZANO