Dandy Dick

About the show

The scene is the Deanery, the residence of the Very Rev Augustin Jedd, D.D, Dean of St Marvell's. He is somewhat impecunious but in a rash moment has promised to give a thousand pounds towards the restoration of the spire of the cathedral. When the money is asked for he is in no mood to listen to the pleas of his daughters Salome and Sheba, who want money for supposedly charitable purposes, but in fact to pay the bills of a London costumier who has supplied them with outfits for a fancy-dress ball, to which they propose to go surreptitiously with Tarver and Darbey, officers in the Hussars stationed nearby. The Dean's widowed sister, Georgiana Tidman, arrives to stay for a visit. Her life revolves around horses and racing, and she is owner of one half – the tail end – of a racehorse called Dandy Dick, the other half belonging to Sir Tristram Mardon, an old college friend of the Dean. The local races are to take place on the following day, and Dandy Dick is to run in the Durnstone Handicap. Georgiana, learning about the monetary difficulty in which her nieces find themselves, advises them to "put their petticoats on Dandy Dick". Georgiana learns how her brother has financially overcommitted himself with regard to the spire, and she recommends him to put fifty pounds on her horse. The Dean is at first appalled by the suggestion, but later he entrusts his old butler Blore with the necessary sum, to be put on Dandy Dick. A fire breaks out at the hotel where Mardon has stabled Dandy Dick, and Georgiana has the horse brought to the Deanery. The Dean, anxious that the horse which will carry his money should not have his chances impaired by a chill, prepares a bolus, into which the unscrupulous Blore, who has backed another horse, secretly slips a few grains of strychnine. The Dean, taking the bolus to the stable, is intercepted by the local policeman, who, being new, does not recognise him, arrests him for attempted doping, and locks him up in a police cell overnight. The next day, Georgiana arranges with some of her disreputable racecourse friends to rescue the Dean from the police vehicle taking him to appear before the magistrates. Dandy Dick gallops home to win the race, the Dean's daughters win the money they need, but the Dean himself ends up no better off, as Blore has put his £50 on a losing horse. Georgiana comes to his rescue with the requisite £1,000.