JOE. [_With sudden fury._] Deserve it! What have I ever done wrong! Wasn't
_my_ fault the firm went bankrupt and I couldn't get another job. I've a
first-rate character--I'm respectable--what's the use? I want to
work--they won't let me!
MARY. That illness of mine ate up all our savings. O Joe, I wish I had
died!
JOE. And left me alone? That's not kind of you, Mary. How about Mrs.
Willis? Is she worrying about the rent?
MARY. Well, she'd like to have it, of course--they're so dreadfully poor
themselves--but she says she won't turn us out. And I'm going to-morrow to
her daughter's upstairs--she makes matchboxes, you know--and I don't see
why I shouldn't try--I could earn nearly a shilling a day.
JOE. A shilling a day! Princely! [_His pipe goes out. He takes a last
puff at it, squints into it to make sure all the tobacco is gone, then
lays it down with a sigh._] I reckon _I'll_ try making 'em too. I went to
the Vestry again, this morning, to see whether they'd take me as
sweeper--but they've thirty names down, ahead of me. I've tried chopping
wood, but I can't--I begin to cough the third stroke--there's something
wrong with me inside, somewhere. I've tried every Institution on God's
earth--and there are others before me, and there is no vacancy, and I
mustn't beg, and I mustn't worry the gentlemen. A shilling a day--can one
earn as much as that! Why, Mary, that will be fourteen shillings a
week--an income! We'll do it!
MARY. It's not quite a shilling, Joe--you have to find your own paste and
odds and ends. And of course it takes a few weeks to learn, before you
begin to make any money.
JOE. [_Crestfallen._] Does it though? And what are we going to do, those
few weeks? I thought there was a catch in it, somewhere. [_He gets up and
stretches himself._] Well, here's a free-born Englishman, able to conduct
correspondence in three languages, bookkeeping by double entry, twelve
years' experience--and all he's allowed to do is to starve. [_He stretches
himself again._]
But in spite of all temptations
To belong to other nations--
[_With sudden passion._] God! I wish I were a Zulu!