



Produced by David Widger from page images generously
provided by the Internet Archive







SCORN OF WOMEN

By Jack London

A Play In Three Acts

Author Of "The Call Of The Wild,"

"White Fang," Etc., Etc.

The Macmillan Company

London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd.

1906



ACT I Alaska Commercial Company's Store at Dawson

ACT II Anteroom of Pioneer Hall

ACT III Freda Moloof's Cabin



Time of play, 1897, Dawson, Northwest Territory. It occurs in thirteen
hours.

Freda Moloof............A dancer.

Floyd Vanderlip.........An Eldorado king.

Loraine Lisznayi........A Hungarian.

Captain Eppingwell......United States government agent.

Mrs. Eppingwell.........His wife.

Flossie.................Engaged to marry Floyd Vanderlip

Sitka Charley...........An Indian dog-driver.

Dave Harney.............An Eldorado king.

Prince..................A mining engineer.

Mrs. McFee..............Whose business is morals.

Minnie..................Maid to Freda Moloof.

Dog-punchers, couriers, miners, Indians, mounted police, clerks, etc.



FREDA MOLOOF. A Greek girl and a dancer. Speaks perfect English, but
withal has that slight, indefinable foreign touch of accent. Good
figure, willowy, yet not too slender. Of indeterminate age, possibly
no more than twenty-five. Her furs the most magnificent in all the
Yukon country from Chilcoot to St. Michael's, her name common on the
lips of men.

FLOYD VANDERLIP. An Eldorado king, worth a couple of millions. Simple,
elemental, almost childish in his emotions. But a brave man, and
masculine; a man who has done a man's work in the world. Has caressed
more shovel-handles than women's hands. Big-muscled, big-bodied,
ingenuous-faced; the sort of a man whom women of the right sort can
tie into knots.

LORAINE LISZNAYI. A Hungarian, reputed to be wealthy, and to be
travelling in the Klondike for pleasure and love of adventure. Past
the flush of youth, and with fair success feigning youth. In the first
stages of putting flesh upon her erstwhile plumpness. Dark-eyed, a
flashing, dazzling brunette, with a cosmopolitan reputation earned in
a day when she posed in the studios of artist-queens and received at
her door the cards of cardinals and princes.

CAPTAIN EPPINGWELL. Special agent for the United States government.

MRS. EPPINGWELL. His wife. Twenty-five to twenty-eight years of age.
Of the cold order of women, possessing sanity, and restraint, and
control. Brown hair, demi-blond type, oval-faced, with cameo-like
features. The kind of a woman who is not painfully good, but who acts
upon principle and who knows always just what she is doing.

FLOSSIE. Eighteen or nineteen years of age. Of the soft and clinging
kind, with pretty, pouting lips, blow-away hair, and eyes full of the
merry shallows of life. Engaged to marry Floyd Vanderlip.

PRINCE. A young mining engineer. A good fellow, a man's man.

MRS. MCFEE. Near to forty, Scotch accent, sharp-featured, and
unbeautiful, with an eager nose that leads her into the affairs of
others. So painfully good that it hurts.

SITKA CHARLEY. An Indian dog-puncher, who has come into the warm and
sat by the fires of the white man until he is somewhat as one of them.
Should not be much shorter than Vanderlip and Captain Eppingwell.

DAVE HARNEY. An Eldorado king, also a Yankee, with a fondness for
sugar and a faculty for sharp dealing. Is tall, lean, loose-jointed.
Walks with a shambling gait. Speaks slowly, with a drawl.

MINNIE. _(Maid to Freda.)_ A cool, impassive young woman.

POLICEMAN. A young fellow, with small blond mustache. An Englishman,
brave, cool, but easily embarrassed. Though he says "Sorry"
frequently, he is never for an instant afraid.




ACT I--ALASKA COMPANY'S STORE AT DAWSON

Scene. _Alaska Commercial Company's store at Dawson. It is eleven
o'clock of a cold winter morning. In front, on the left, a very
large wood-burning stove. Beside the stove is a woodbox filled with
firewood. Farther back, on left, a door with sign on it, "Private." On
right, door, a street entrance; alongside are wisp-brooms for brushing
snow from moccasins. In the background a long counter running full
length of room with just space at either end for ingress or egress.
Large gold-scales rest upon counter. Behind counter equally long
rows of shelves, broken in two places by ordinary small-paned
house-windows. Windows are source of a dim, gray light. Doors,
window-frames, and sashes are of rough, unstained pine boards.
Shelves practically empty, with here and there upon them an article
of hardware _(such as pots, pans, and tea-kettles)_, or of dry-goods
_(such as pasteboard boxes and bolts of cloth)_. The walls of the
store are of logs stuffed between with brown moss. On counter,
furs, moccasins, mittens, and blankets, piled up or spread out for
inspection. In front of counter many snow-shoes, picks, shovels,
axes, gold-pans, axe-handles, and oblong sheet-iron Yukon stoves. The
feature most notable is the absence of foodstuffs in any considerable
quantity. On shelves a few tins of mushrooms, a few bottles of
olives._

_About the stove, backs to the stove and hands behind their backs,
clad in mackinaw suits, mittens dangling from around their necks at
ends of leather thongs, ear-flaps of fur caps raised, are several
miners._ Prince _stands by stove An Indian is replenishing the fire
with great chunks of wood. Mounted police pass in and out._ Sitka
Charley _is examining snow-shoes, bending and testing them. Behind
the counter are several clerks, one of whom is waiting upon a bearded
miner near end of counter to right._

MINER

_(Pathetically.)_ No flour?

CLERK

_(Shakes head.)_

MINER

_(Increased pathos.)_

No beans?

CLERK

_(Shakes head as before.)_

MINER

_(Supreme pathos.)_

No sugar?

CLERK

_(Coming from behind counter and approaching stove, visibly irritated,
shaking his head violently; midway he encounters Miner, who retreats
backward before him.)_

No! No! No! I tell you no! No flour, no beans, no sugar, nothing!

_(Warms his hands over stove and glares ferociously at Miner.)_

_(Dave Harney enters from right, brushes snow from moccasins, and
walks across to stove. He is tall and lean, has a loose-jointed,
shambling gait, and listens interestedly to Clerk and Miner. He
evinces a desire to speak, but his mustached mouth is so iced-up that
he cannot open it. He bends over stove to thaw the ice.)_

MINER

_(To Clerk, with growing anger.)_

It's all very well for your playing the high an' lofty, you sneakin'
little counter-jumper. But we all know what your damned Company is up
to. You're holdin' grub for a rise, that's what you're doin'. Famine
prices is your game.

CLERK

Look at the shelves, man! Look at them!

MINER

How about the warehouses, eh? Stacked to the roof with grub!

CLERK

They're not.

MINER

I suppose you'll say they're empty.

CLERK

They're not. But what little grub's in them belongs to the sour-doughs
who filed their orders last spring and summer before ever you thought
of coming into the country. And even the sourdoughs are scaled down,
cut clean in half. Now shut up. I don't want to hear any more from
you. You newcomers needn't think you're going to run this country,
because you ain't.

_(Turning his hack on Miner.)_

Damned cheechawker!

MINER

_(Breaking down and showing fear, not of Clerk, but of famine.)_

But good heavens, man, what am I to do? I haven't fifty pounds of
flour for the whole winter.

I can pay for my grub if you'll sell it to me. You can't leave me
starve!

DAVE HARNEY

_(Tearing the last chunk oj ice from mustache and sending it rattling
to the floor. He speaks with a drawl.)_

Aw, you tenderfeet make me tired. I never seen the beat of you
critters. Better men than you have starved in this country, an' they
didn't make no bones about it neither--they was all bones I calkilate.
What do you think this is? A Sunday picnic? Jes' come in, eh? An'
you're clean scairt. Look at me--old-timer, sir, a sour-dough, an'
proud of it! I come into this country before there was any blamed
Company, fished for my breakfast, an' hunted my supper. An' when
the fish didn't bite an' they wa'n't any game, jes' cinched my belt
tighter an' hiked along, livin' on salmon-bellies and rabbit tracks
an' eatin' my moccasins.

_(Jubilantly.)_

Oh, I tell you this is the country that'll take the saleratus out of
you!

_(Miner, awed by being face to face with an old-timer, withers up
during harangue, and at finish shrinks behind other miners, and from
there makes exit to right.)_

_(Drawing paper from pocket and presenting it.)_

Now lookee here, Mister Clerk, what'd you call that?

CLERK

_(Glancing perfunctorily at paper.)_

Grub contract.

DAVE HARNEY

What's it stand for?

CLERK

