What?

MR. BULLAMY.

This is a public scandal, sir!

LUKYN.

Your game is up, sir!

MR. BULLAMY.

You have brought a stain upon a spotless police court!

LUKYN.

And lectured me upon propriety and decorum.

MR. POSKET.

Gentlemen, gentlemen, when you have heard my story you will pity me.

LUKYN AND MR. BULLAMY.

[_Laughing ironically._] Ha! ha!

MR. POSKET.

You will find your old friend a Man, a Martyr, and a Magistrate!

_CIS enters, pulling BEATIE after him._

CIS.

Come on, Beatie! Guv--mater! here's news! Beatie and I have made up our minds to be married.

AGATHA POSKET.

Oh!

_POPHAM enters with champagne and gla.s.ses._

MR. POSKET.

What's this?

CIS.

Bellinger--'74--extra dry--to drink our health and happiness.

CHARLOTTE.

Champagne! It may save my life!

AGATHA POSKET.

Miss Tomlinson, go home!

MR. POSKET.

Stop! Cis Farringdon, my dear boy, you are but nineteen at present, but you were only fourteen yesterday, so you are a growing lad; on the day you marry and start for Canada, I will give you a thousand pounds!

POPHAM.

[_Putting her ap.r.o.n to her eyes._] Oh!

CIS.

[_Embracing BEATIE._] Hurrah! We'll be married directly.

AGATHA POSKET.

He's an infant! I forbid it!

MR. POSKET.

I am his legal guardian. Gentlemen, bear witness! I solemnly consent to that little wretch's marriage!

[_AGATHA POSKET sinks into a chair._

THE END.

Printed by Ballantyne & Company Ltd Tavistock Street Covent Garden London

Transcriber's Note

This transcription is based on scanned images of two different copies posted by the Internet Archive. The primary source is posted at:

archive.org/details/magistratefarcei00pinerich

These images, scanned from a copy in the University of California, Berkeley Library, are of an edition printed in London by William Heinemann in 1914. Note that the Internet Archive identifier-access page for this copy incorrectly lists the publisher as W. H. Baker. The secondary source is posted at:

archive.org/details/cu31924013536556

These images, scanned from a copy in the Cornell University Library, are of an edition printed in New York by the United States Book Company.