The Two Cavees

DRAMATIS PERSON�.

FITCH, a Pelter of Railrogues
PICKERING, his Partner, an Enemy to Sin
OLD NICK , a General Blackwasher
DEAD CAT, a Missile
ANTIQUE EGG, Another

RAILROGUES, DUMP-CARTERS. NAVVIES and Unassorted SHOVELRY in the Lower Distance

Scene--The Brink of a Railway Cut, a Mile Deep.

Time--1875.

FITCH:

Gods! what a steep declivity! Below
I see the lazy dump-carts come and go,
Creeping like beetles and about as big.
The delving Paddies--

PICKERING:

Case of infra dig.

FITCH:

Loring, light-minded and unmeaning quips
Come with but scant propriety from lips
Fringed with the blue-black evidence of age.
'Twere well to cultivate a style more sage,
For men will fancy, hearing how you pun,
Our foulest missiles are but thrown in fun.

(Enter Dead Cat.)

Here's one that thoughtfully has come to hand;
Slant your fine eye below and see it land.
(Seizes Dead Cat by the tail and swings it in act to throw.)

DEAD CAT (singing):

Merrily, merrily, round I go--
Over and under and at.
Swing wide and free, swing high and low
The anti-monopoly cat!

O, who wouldn't be in the place of me,
The anti-monopoly cat?
Designed to admonish,
Persuade and astonish
The capitalist and--

FITCH (letting go):

Scat!
(Exit Dead Cat.)

PICKERING:

Huzza! good Deacon, well and truly flung!
Pat Stanford it has grassed, and Mike de Young.
Mike drives a dump-cart for the villains, though
'Twere fitter that he pull it. Well, we owe
The traitor one for leaving us!--some day
We'll get, if not his place, his cart away.
Meantime fling missiles--any kind will do.
(Enter Antique Egg.)
Ha! we can give them an ovation, too!

ANTIQUE EGG:

In the valley of the Nile,
Where the Holy Crocodile
Of immeasurable smile
Blossoms like the early rose,
And the Sacred Onion grows--
When the Pyramids were new
And the Sphinx possessed a nose,
By a storkess I was laid
In the cool papyrus shade,
Where the rushes later grew,
That concealed the little Jew,
Baby Mose.

Straining very hard to hatch,
I disrupted there my yolk;
And I felt my yellow streaming
Through my white;
And the dream that I was dreaming
Of posterity was broke
In a night.
Then from the papyrus-patch
By the rising waters rolled,
Passing many a temple old,
I proceeded to the sea.
Memnon sang, one morn, to me,
And I heard Cambyses sass
The tomb of Ozymandias!

FITCH:

O, venerablest orb of all the earth,
God rest the lady fowl that gave thee birth!
Fit missile for the vilest hand to throw--
I freely tender thee mine own. Although
As a bad egg I am myself no slouch,
Thy riper years thy ranker worth avouch.
Now, Pickering, please expose your eye and say
If--whoop!--
(Exit egg.)
I've got the range.

PICKERING:
Hooray! hooray!
A grand good shot, and Teddy Colton's down:
It burst in thunderbolts upon his crown!
Larry O'Crocker drops his pick and flies,
And deafening odors scream along the skies!
Pelt 'em some more.

FITCH:

There's nothing left but tar--
wish I were a Yahoo.

PICKERING:

Well, you are.
But keep the tar. How well I recollect,
When Mike was in with us--proud, strong, erect--
Mens conscia recti--flinging mud, he stood,
Austerely brave, incomparably good,
Ere yet for filthy lucre he began
To drive a cart as Stanford's hired man,
That pitch-pot bearing in his hand, Old Nick
Appeared and tarred us all with the same stick.
(Enter Old Nick).
I hope he won't return and use his arts
To make us part with our immortal parts.

OLD NICK:

Make yourself easy on that score my lamb;
For both your souls I wouldn't give a damn!
I want my tar-pot--hello! where's the stick?

FITCH:

Don't look at me that fashion!--look at Pick.

PICKERING:

Forgive me, father--pity my remorse!
Truth is--Mike took that stick to spank his horse.
It fills my pericardium with grief
That I kept company with such a thief.

(Endeavoring to get his handkerchief, he opens his coat and
the tar-stick falls out. Nick picks it up, looks at the culprit
reproachfully and withdraws in tears.)

FITCH (excitedly):

O Pickering, come hither to the brink--
There's something going on down there, I think!
With many an upward smile and meaning wink
The navvies all are running from the cut
Like lunatics, to right and left--

PICKERING:
Tut, tut--
'Tis only some poor sport or boisterous joke.
Let us sit down and have a quiet smoke.
(They sit and light cigars.)

FITCH (singing):

When first I met Miss Toughie
I smoked a fine cigyar,
An' I was on de dummy
And she was in de cyar.

BOTH (singing):

An' I was on de dummy
And she was in de cyar.

FITCH (singing):

I couldn't go to her,
An' she wouldn't come to me;
An' I was as oneasy
As a gander on a tree.

BOTH (singing):

An' I was as oneasy
As a gander on a tree.

FITCH (singing):

But purty soon I weakened
An' lef' de dummy's bench,
An' frew away a ten-cent weed
To win a five-cent wench!

BOTH (singing)

An' frew away a ten-cent weed
To win a five-cent wench!

FITCH:

Is there not now a certain substance sold
Under the name of fulminate of gold,
A high explosive, popular for blasting,
Producing an effect immense and lasting?

PICKERING:

Nay, that's mere superstition. Rocks are rent
And excavations made by argument.
Explosives all have had their day and season;
The modern engineer relies on reason.
He'll talk a tunnel through a mountain's flank
And by fair speech cave down the tallest bank.

(The earth trembles, a deep subterranean explosion is heard
and a section of the bank as big as El Capitan starts away and
plunges thunderously into the cut. A part of it strikes De
Young's dumpcart abaft the axletree and flings him, hurtling,
skyward, a thing of legs and arms, to descend on the distant
mountains, where it is cold. Fitch and Pickering pull themselves
out of the d�bris and stand ungraveling their eyes and
noses.)

FITCH:

Well, since I'm down here I will help to grade,
And do dirt-throwing henceforth with a spade.

PICKERING:

God bless my soul! it gave me quit a start.
Well, fate is fate--I guess I'll drive this cart.

(Curtain.)

THE END.

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