Free Priestley Plays Four by J. B. Priestley Page B

carrying a large pasty and a tankard
.
    MARLAGRAM: He-he-he-he! Well, here I am again, my boy. And here’s a real supper.
    SAM:
(As he takes it.)
Thanks very much, Master Marlagram.
    MARLAGRAM: King Meliot’s best wine and his favourite pasty – he-he-he!
    SAM: There’ll be hell to pay if he finds out. There was when I had ’em for lunch.
(Begins eating and drinking.)
You brought back Princess Melicent of course?
    MARLAGRAM: Yes, and we’ve come to a nice little arrangement. She gets what she wants. I get what I want. You couldn’t have it neater.
    SAM: Speak for yourself. What happens to me?
    MARLAGRAM: Well, what do you want to happen to you, my boy? Most people don’t get what they want just because they don’t know what they want. Now do
you
know what you want?
    SAM: Certainly. When a man’s chained up in a dungeon, he starts from scratch.
    MARLAGRAM: He starts from scratch / To make a match.
    SAM:
(Still eating and drinking.)
No verse, if you don’t mind. After you’d gone this afternoon I couldn’t stop making up thousands of bad lines. But certainly I do want to make a match, as you say. I’ve never thought of myself as a marrying man, but now I want to marry Melicent, whichever world we decide to live in. Dam’ good pasty this. I don’t blame the King for wanting to hog it all himself.
    MARLAGRAM: But why Princess Melicent, my boy? You’ve known plenty of young women – pretty girls, clever girls, arty-party ever-so-hearty girls – he-he-he! – why come so far as Peradore to marry one?
    SAM:
(Still eating and drinking.)
I want to marry Melicent because she seems to me to offer two wonderful qualities I’ve never found before in the same girl – a loving kindness and a beautiful strangeness. A smiling princess – what every man wants. But God knows what she sees in me.
    MELICENT:
(Entering now.)
God knows – and I know, my darling – but neither of us will ever tell you.
    MARLAGRAM: He-he-he! She heard everything you said, my boy. He-he-he!
    MELICENT: I wish you’d stop making that silly noise – and conjure poor Sam out of his chains and things. You can, can’t you? Otherwise I’d have brought a file.
    MARLAGRAM: I can – though chains and manacles are quite tricky. Quiet, now.
Eeeny-meeny-miny-mo
. There you are.
(Sound of chains falling.)
    MELICENT: How clever of you! I must remember that.
Eeny-meeny-miny-mo
.
    SAM: I’ve known it for years, but never knew it would do anything to chains.
    MELICENT: Are you having a nice supper, darling?
    SAM: Yes, I am, sweetheart. But what happens now? Though don’t think, Master Marlagram, that I’m not grateful for the chain work and the supper. But what’s the next move?
    MELICENT:
(Enthusiastically.)
That’s where Master Marlagram’s been so very very clever –
    MARLAGRAM: Though my nephew – smart lad! – got here first, one move ahead of me –
    MELICENT: You see, my father says now I must marry someone – he’s very cross about everything – so Master Marlagram prophesied that there’s a terrible Red Knight who’s going to challenge everybody at the tournament tomorrow –
    MARLAGRAM:
(With relish.)
And a monster fiery dragon’s coming too – might be here already – he-he-he!
    MELICENT: And my father’s agreed that whoever overcomes them both receives my hand in marriage. And of course that has to be you, darling.
    SAM: Bless you!
    MELICENT: Hasn’t Master Marlagram arranged it all cleverly and cunningly?
    MARLAGRAM: You don’t know the half of it – the way I took advantage of being a move behind my nephew – he-he-he!
    SAM:
(Laughing too.)
Brilliant, I’ll bet! What an enchanter! So I go out tomorrow – and pretend to have knocked off a terrible Red Knight and a fiery dragon. Wonderful!
(He laughs again.)
Well, so long as you give me a few tips about what to say and how to look, I can pretend all that as well as the next man.
(He laughs again.)
    MELICENT: Just a minute, darling.
    SAM: Sorry – making too much noise.