But just listen to the plan he adopted to take in his dupe--ah! ah! ah! ah! I can't think of it without laughing heartily--ah! ah! ah! He went to that old screw--ah! ah! ah!--and told him that while he was walking about the harbour with his son--ah! ah!--they noticed a Turkish galley; that a young Turk had invited them to come in and see it; that he had given them some lunch--ah! ah!--and that, while they were at table, the galley had gone into the open sea; that the Turk had sent him alone back, with the express order to say to him that, unless he sent him five hundred crowns, he would take his son to be a slave in Algiers--ah, ah, ah! You may imagine our miser, our stingy old curmudgeon, in the greatest anguish, struggling between his love for his son and his love for his money. Those five hundred crowns that are asked of him are five hundred dagger-thrusts--ah! ah! ah! ah! He can't bring his mind to tear out, as it were, this sum from his heart, and his anguish makes him think of the most ridiculous means to find money for his son's ransom--ah! ah! ah! He wants to send the police into the open sea after the Turk's galley--ah! ah! ah! He asks his servant to take the place of his son till he has found the money to pay for him--money he has no intention of giving--ah! ah! ah! He yields up, to make the five hundred crowns, three or four old suits which are not worth thirty--ah! ah! ah! The servant shows him each time how absurd is what he proposes, and each reflection of the old fellow is accompanied by an agonising, "But what the deuce did he want to go in that galley for? Ah! cursed galley. Ah! scoundrel of a Turk!" At last, after many hesitations, after having sighed and groaned for a long time...But it seems to me that my story does not make you laugh; what do you say to it?

Zer Monologue from The Impostures of Scapin

Rehearse Zer's monologue