SATAN: 

And me.

(Curtain.)

ASPIRANTS THREE

DRAMATIS PERSONAE.

QUICK: 
     DE YOUNG a Brother to Mushrooms

DEAD: 
     SWIFT an Heirloom
     ESTEE a Relic

IMMORTALS: 
     THE SPIRIT OF BROKEN HOPES.  THE AUTHOR.

MISCELLANEOUS: 
     A TROUPE OF COFFINS.  THE MOON.  VARIOUS COLORED FIRES.

Scene—­The Political Graveyard at Bone Mountain.

DE YOUNG: 

This is the spot agreed upon.  Here rest
The sainted statesman who upon the field
Of honor have at various times laid down
Their own, and ended, ignominious,
Their lives political.  About me, lo! 
Their silent headstones, gilded by the moon,
Half-full and near her setting—­midnight.  Hark! 
Through the white mists of this portentous night
(Which throng in moving shapes about my way,
As they were ghosts of candidates I’ve slain,
To fray their murderer) my open ear,
Spacious to maw the noises of the world,
Engulfs a footstep.
             (Enter Estee from his tomb.)
                    Ah, ’tis he, my foe,
True to appointment; and so here we fight—­
Though truly ’twas my firm belief that he
Would send regrets, or I had not been here.

ESTEE: 

O moon that hast so oft surprised the deeds
Whereby I rose to greatness!—­tricksy orb,
The type and symbol of my politics,
Now draw my ebbing fortunes to their flood,
As, by the magic of a poultice, boils
That burn ambitions with defeated fires
Are lifted into eminence.
                         (Sees De Young.)
                         What? you! 
Faith, if I had suspected you would come
From the fair world of politics wherein
So lately you were whelped, and which, alas,
I vainly to revisit strive, though still
Rapped on the rotting head and bidden sleep
Till Resurrection’s morn,—­if I had thought
You would accept the challenge that I flung
I would have seen you damned ere I came forth
In the night air, shroud-clad and shivering,
To fight so mean a thing!  But since you’re here,
Draw and defend yourself.  By gad, we’ll see
Who’ll be Postmaster-General!

DE YOUNG: 

We will—­
I’ll fight (for I am lame) with any blue
And redolent remain that dares aspire
To wreck the Grand Old Grandson’s cabinet. 
Here’s at you, nosegay!

(They draw tongues and are about to fight, when from an adjacent whited sepulcher, enter Swift.)

SWIFT: