LINDA [taking it]: Oh, how sweet! [Still crying a little she kneels on the floor to unwrap the package.] Oh!

BABE: Yeah. A traveling bag!

MITCH [significantly]: Show people can always use an extra piece of luggage once in a while. . . .

LINDA [slightly embarrassed]: It’s beautiful! Jim and I will use it on our honeymoon. We’re planning to have one some day.

BABE [surveying the room]: Criminently, what a dump! Parlor, bedroom, and bath all in one!

LINDA [laughing]: There isn’t any bath. Jim says that baths are an affectation of the idle rich!

BABE: A what? Hmmm. What kind of a guy is this husband of yours?

MITCH: No bathtub? Gosh, Duchess, what do you make your gin in? Well— [He looks at leaking places in the roof.] I see you got plenty of running water, anyway!

LINDA: Isn’t it awful? It’s been leaking all afternoon! But when the sun comes out it’s really very pleasant in here!

[Mitch seats himself on the floor beside her.]

MITCH: So this is where you’ve been hiding out since you quit the show?

LINDA: This is it! [Takes Mitch’s handkerchief to wipe her eyes.] Oh, it really isn’t as bad as it looks! It’s what they call a—a studio apartment! All young artists have places like this!

BABE: I getcha. Bohemian, huh? Sure. This is really the stuff. Atmosphere. Color. Cockroaches and a leaking roof—well, where’s the master of the house?

LINDA [proudly]: He’s calling on T. Anthony Wescott at the Waldorf-Astoria. He just arrived this morning aboard the Île de France.

BABE: The Eel de Frawnce? Well, fawncy that! Don’t you remember, my dear, that’s where we met the Count and Countess De Tootsie! It was simply ripping, you know, how the Count dunked his monocle in Lady Clamfeather’s soup!

LINDA: Oh, Babe! Crazy as ever—Wescott’s an art-dealer—Jim’s gone to show him some of his pictures and if he’ll just take an interest in Jim’s work it will mean everything for us! It will mean— [She gets up and goes to window.] Just everything! . . . Oh—I wish this rain would stop! Poor Jim will get soaking wet!

MITCH: So Jim’s the name. What’s the rest of it?

LINDA: Mr. and Mrs. James Oliver Flynn!

MITCH: Fancy moniker, that! Look good on a billboard. Mr. and Mrs. Flynn and the Five Little Flying Flynns! How about it, Duchess? What can he do? Dance, patter, croon—adagio?

LINDA: He’s an artist, you nut! Haven’t you ever heard of an artist before?

MITCH: Sure. An artist is a guy that’s out of a job and don’t give a damn. [He opens a cigarette case and offers it to Linda. Linda and Babe take cigarettes.] Seriously, Duchess, how are you fixed?

LINDA: Okay.

BABE: Come on. No stalling. What’s the real situation. On the rocks, huh?

LINDA [smiling bravely]: Everything is okay.

BABE: Yeah. Everything including the roof. You look like you haven’t had a square meal in a couple of weeks!