"If he is killed, feed him to the goldfish and let one of the dogs
read his part. We must get along with this play. Now, then. 'Ah! why
did I ever leave Boston where every one is nice and proper?'" To which
his supposed mother replied with feigned emotion: "It was because of
your father, my poor boy. Ah, what I had to endure through those years
when he cursed and spoke disrespectfully of our city. 'Scissors and
white aprons,' he would cry out, 'Why is Boston?' But I bore it all
for your sake, and now you, too, are smoking--you will go the same
way."
"But promise me, mother," returns Oswald, "promise me if I ever get
dusty in the garret, that Lord Algy here will tell me one of his funny
wheezes and put me out of pain. You could not bear to hear me knocking
Boston as poor father did. And I feel it coming--already my
mother-in-law has bluffed me into admitting that Red Gap has a right
to be on the same map with Boston if it's a big map."
And this was the coarsely wretched buffoonery that refined people were
expected to sit through! Yet worse followed, for at their climax, the
mimic Oswald having gone quite off his head, the Hobbs person, still
with the preposterous affectation of taking me off in speech and
manner, was persuaded by the stricken mother to sing.
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