Wrong again. Not here. What can have become of the creature! ((Sets gun down.)) He certainly ran into this house! Egad! whose house is it, by the way? Never saw a finer hare in my life. In all my experience I never saw a finer hare! I couldn't have bought him in the market under thirty cents. ((Rises.)) He's cost me a pretty penny, though. Up at six for a day's shooting. Dog starts a hare in ten minutes. Aim! Hare goes off, gun don't. Bad cap. Off I go, however, hot foot after him. He runs into a thicket. Rustic appears. I hail him. "Hallo, friend! A dollar if you'll start out that hare." A dollar for a hare worth thirty cents! say thirty-five. Out he comes; dog after him. Aim again. This time gun goes off, dog don't. Shot him. Worth forty dollars. Total so far, forty-one dollars. Load again. Hare gives me a run of five miles. Stop to rest; drop asleep. Wake up, and see hare not ten yards away, munching a cabbage. Gun again, and after him. He jumps over a fence; I jump over a fence. He comes down on his fore-paws; I come down on my fore-paws. He recovers his equilibrium; I recover mine (on the flat of my back). Suddenly I observe myself to be hunted by an army of rustics, my dollar friend among them,--well-meaning people, no doubt,--armed with flails, forks, harrows, and ploughs, and greedy for my life. They shout; I run. And here I am, after smashing fifty dollars' worth of glass and things! Total, including dog, ninety-one dollars, not to mention fine for breaking melon-frames by some miserable justice's court, say twenty dollars more! Grand total, let me see: yes, a hundred and twenty dollars, more or less, for a hare worth thirty-five cents! say forty. ((Noise outside.)) Ha! no rest for the wicked here. (Picks up gun, rushes for door in flat--met by CODDLE; runs to door at left--met by JANE.) Caught, by Jupiter! ((Falls into a chair.))

Whitwell Monologue from None so deaf as those who won't hear

Rehearse Whitwell's monologue