THE MAN. Monster! Without conscience! without even memory! You left her to her shame--
TARLETON. _[throwing the brooch on the table and rising pepperily]_ Come, come, young man! none of that. Respect the romance of your mother"s youth. Dont you start throwing stones at her. I dont recall her features just at this moment; but Ive no doubt she was kind to me and we were happy together. If you have a word to say against her, take yourself out of my house and say it elsewhere.
THE MAN. What sort of a joker are you? Are you trying to put me in the wrong, when you have to answer to me for a crime that would make every honest man spit at you as you pa.s.sed in the street if I were to make it known?
TARLETON. You read a good deal, dont you?
THE MAN. What if I do? What has that to do with your infamy and my mother"s doom?
TARLETON. There, you see! Doom! Thats not good sense; but it"s literature. Now it happens that I"m a tremendous reader: always was.
When I was your age I read books of that sort by the bushel: the Doom sort, you know. It"s odd, isnt it, that you and I should be like one another in that respect? Can you account for it in any way?
THE MAN. No. What are you driving at?
TARLETON. Well, do you know who your father was?
THE MAN. I see what you mean now. You dare set up to be my father.
Thank heaven Ive not a drop of your vile blood in my veins.
TARLETON. _[sitting down again with a shrug]_ Well, if you wont be civil, theres no pleasure in talking to you, is there? What do you want? Money?
THE MAN. How dare you insult me?
TARLETON. Well, what do you want?
THE MAN. Justice.
TARLETON. Youre quite sure thats all?
THE MAN. It"s enough for me.
TARLETON. A modest sort of demand, isnt it? n.o.body ever had it since the world began, fortunately for themselves; but you must have it, must you? Well, youve come to the wrong shop for it: youll get no justice here: we dont keep it. Human nature is what we stock.
THE MAN. Human nature! Debauchery! gluttony! selfishness! robbery of the poor! Is that what you call human nature?
TARLETON. No: thats what you call it. Come, my lad! Whats the matter with you? You dont look starved; and youve a decent suit of clothes.
THE MAN. Forty-two shillings.
TARLETON. They can do you a very decent suit for forty-two shillings.
Have you paid for it?
THE MAN. Do you take me for a thief? And do you suppose I can get credit like you?
TARLETON. Then you were able to lay your hand on forty-two shillings.
Judging from your conversational style, I should think you must spend at least a shilling a week on romantic literature.
THE MAN. Where would I get a shilling a week to spend on books when I can hardly keep myself decent? I get books at the Free Library.
TARLETON _[springing to his feet]_ What!!!
THE MAN. _[recoiling before his vehemence]_ The Free Library.
Theres no harm in that.
TARLETON. Ingrate! I supply you with free books; and the use you make of them is to persuade yourself that it"s a fine thing to shoot me. _[He throws himself doggedly back into his chair]._ I"ll never give another penny to a Free Library.
THE MAN. Youll never give another penny to anything. This is the end: for you and me.
TARLETON. Pooh! Come, come, man! talk business. Whats wrong? Are you out of employment?
THE MAN. No. This is my Sat.u.r.day afternoon. Dont flatter yourself that I"m a loafer or a criminal. I"m a cashier; and I defy you to say that my cash has ever been a farthing wrong. Ive a right to call you to account because my hands are clean.
TARLETON. Well, call away. What have I to account for? Had you a hard time with your mother? Why didnt she ask me for money?
THE MAN. She"d have died first. Besides, who wanted your money? Do you suppose we lived in the gutter? My father maynt have been in as large a way as you; but he was better connected; and his shop was as respectable as yours.
TARLETON. I suppose your mother brought him a little capital.
THE MAN. I dont know. Whats that got to do with you?
TARLETON. Well, you say she and I knew one another and parted. She must have had something off me then, you know. One doesnt get out of these things for nothing. Hang it, young man: do you suppose Ive no heart? Of course she had her due; and she found a husband with it, and set him up in business with it, and brought you up respectably; so what the devil have you to complain of?
THE MAN. Are women to be ruined with impunity?
TARLETON. I havnt ruined any woman that I"m aware of. Ive been the making of you and your mother.
THE MAN. Oh, I"m a fool to listen to you and argue with you. I came here to kill you and then kill myself.
TARLETON. Begin with yourself, if you dont mind. Ive a good deal of business to do still before I die. Havnt you?
THE MAN. No. Thats just it: Ive no business to do. Do you know what my life is? I spend my days from nine to six--nine hours of daylight and fresh air--in a stuffy little den counting another man"s money. Ive an intellect: a mind and a brain and a soul; and the use he makes of them is to fix them on his tuppences and his eighteenpences and his two pound seventeen and tenpences and see how much they come to at the end of the day and take care that no one steals them. I enter and enter, and add and add, and take money and give change, and fill cheques and stamp receipts; and not a penny of that money is my own: not one of those transactions has the smallest interest for me or anyone else in the world but him; and even he couldnt stand it if he had to do it all himself. And I"m envied: aye, envied for the variety and liveliness of my job, by the poor devil of a bookkeeper that has to copy all my entries over again.
Fifty thousand entries a year that poor wretch makes; and not ten out of the fifty thousand ever has to be referred to again; and when all the figures are counted up and the balance sheet made out, the boss isnt a penny the richer than he"d be if bookkeeping had never been invented. Of all the d.a.m.nable waste of human life that ever was invented, clerking is the very worst.
TARLETON. Why not join the territorials?
THE MAN. Because I shouldnt be let. He hasnt even the sense to see that it would pay him to get some cheap soldiering out of me. How can a man tied to a desk from nine to six be anything--be even a man, let alone a soldier? But I"ll teach him and you a lesson. Ive had enough of living a dog"s life and despising myself for it. Ive had enough of being talked down to by hogs like you, and wearing my life out for a salary that wouldnt keep you in cigars. Youll never believe that a clerk"s a man until one of us makes an example of one of you.
TARLETON. Despotism tempered by a.s.sa.s.sination, eh?
THE MAN. Yes. Thats what they do in Russia. Well, a business office is Russia as far as the clerks are concerned. So dont you take it so coolly. You think I"m not going to do it; but I am.
TARLETON. _[rising and facing him]_ Come, now, as man to man! It"s not my fault that youre poorer than I am; and it"s not your fault that I"m richer than you. And if you could undo all that pa.s.sed between me and your mother, you wouldnt undo it; and neither would she. But youre sick of your slavery; and you want to be the hero of a romance and to get into the papers. Eh? A son revenges his mother"s shame.
Villain weltering in his gore. Mother: look down from heaven and receive your unhappy son"s last sigh.
THE MAN. Oh, rot! do you think I read novelettes? And do you suppose I believe such superst.i.tions as heaven? I go to church because the boss told me I"d get the sack if I didnt. Free England! Ha! _[Lina appears at the pavilion door, and comes swiftly and noiselessly forward on seeing the man with a pistol in his hand]._
TARLETON. Youre afraid of getting the sack; but youre not afraid to shoot yourself.