First Appeared July 15th, 2005
The Incorrigible Mr Ridgwater
A Play in Multitudinous Acts
Act I
Scene i
[Enter upon the drawing room of Ridgwater, E.C. Architectural style is Mid-Victorian with hints of Eighteenth century Danish and Baroque. Named is sitting upon a leather-backed chair in center. Placed next to chair is a side-table measuring in height approximately from the navel of a man of roughly five-foot seven inches to ground, suitably carpeted. Upon noted side-table is a telephone. There is also an escalator.]
Mr Ridgwater: Alas!
Act II
Scene i
Mr Ridgwater: O, ruthless globe! Why must you torment me with your lascivious wiles! Hurling maidens of beauteous nature upon my oaken doorstep! My digits, they crimp and
Scene ii
curl in arthritic anguish at the very thought of the feminine splendor my own dear orbs have beheld...But hark, do I hear that damndable contraption to the sinister of my person clang and peal as if wrung by that Unfortunate Humpback, that caroller of the most holy of Cathedrals!?
Act III
Scene i
Telephone: Ring
Mr Rigwater: Alack! My own auditory perceptors, they reverberate with your detestable tintinnabulation!
Telephone: Ring
Mr Ridgwater: What might a good Christian do to cease such a demonic clangor...Ah, wait, the very mists of time have parted to reveal the solution to me. I remember now, I and my lady love were gambolling, cavorting upon some Elysian field, relishing and slaking our thirst upon the honeyed liqueur of youth, when suddenly we were assaulted by a apparatus very similar to this beast. I recall that in my desperation I grasped it by its neck so that I may smother its squawkings most easily, when, to my astonishment, I detected a voice emitted from its cruel maw! A sweet, melodious voice delivered from the heavens themselves! O Communication! The very gift of Mighty Hermes!
Scene ii
Telephone: Ring
Act IV
Scene i
Mr Ridgwater [picking up the receiver and speaking in its general direction]: Hello? Mighty Hermes?!
[The voice of the Reverend Nigel Snyffe-Harington, vicar, can be heard]
Snyffe-Harington: Hello? No, this is Nigel Snyffe-Harringon, vicar. Your dearest friend!
Mr Ridgwater: Ah, sweet companion, what priestly magicks are you conjuring so that I might hear your speech from so great a distance?
Snyffe-Harington: Blasphemy! I am merely employing a device that, through Mr Franklin's discovery, converts my voice into a form that can be transmitted to remote locations.
Mr Ridgwater: Fascinating! Tell me more! Instruct me with your gentle and auriferous words.
Snyffe-Harington: No.
Scene ii
Mr Ridgwater: My heart palpitates in misery. Why, may I ask, do you seek my counsel?
Snyffe-Harington: The Queen...
Mr Ridgwater: Of Russia?
Snyffe-Harington: No, you great plodding imbecile! You speak as if you are some common soil-tiller, some pockmarked peasant with barely a tuppence to his uncouth name! The Great Bear of Rus has never borne a queen! It is our own Queen, unconstricted by inexistence, that has—alas!—fled the mortal world!
Mr Ridgwater: Our own Queen, the Conqueror's progeny, has died? Surely you lie! Your lips seek to unhinge my very intellect with fallacious follies and serpentine stratagems! Surely, you must lie!
To Be Continued...
