e: your heart's beneath the hoofs
Before ...

BELL:
But grin, and keep yourself heartwhole;
And you'll find the fun of the fair's in taking chances:
It's the uncertainty makes the race--no sport
In putting money on dead-certainties.
I back the dark horse; stake my soul against
The odds: and I'll not grouse if life should prove
A welsher in the end: I'll have had my fling,
At least: and yet talk's cheap ...

JUDITH:
Ay, cheap.

BELL:
Dirt-cheap:
Three-shots-a-penny; and it's not every time
You hit Aunt Sally and get a good cigar,
Or even pot a milky coconut:
And, all this while, life's had the upper hand:
I slipt, the day I came; and lost my grip:
Life got me by the scruff of the neck, and held
My proud nose to the grindstone. My turn, now--
I'll be upsides with life, and teach it manners,
Before death gets the stranglehold: I'll have
The last laugh, though it choke me. And what's death,
To set us twittering? I'll be no frightened squirrel:
Scarting and scolding never yet scared death:
When he's a mind to crack me like a nut,
I'd be no husk: still ripe and milky, I'd have him
Swallow the kernel, and spit out the shell,
Before all's shrivelled to black dust. But, tombstones,
What's turned my thoughts to death? It's these white walls,
After a day in the open. When I came,
At first, these four walls seemed to close in on me,
As though they'd crush the life out: and I felt
I'd die between them: but, after all ... And yet,
Who kens what green sod's to be broken for him?
Queer, that I'll lie, like any innocent
Beneath the daisies; but the gowans must wait.
Sore-punished, I'm not yet knocked out: life's had
My head in chancery; but I'll soon be free
To spar another round or so with him,
Before he sends me spinning to the ropes.
And life would not be life, without the hazards.

JUDITH:
Too many hazards for me.

BELL:
Ay: so it seems:
But you're too honest for the tricky game.
I've a sort of honesty--a liar and thief
In little things--I'm honesty itself
In the things that matter--few enough, deuce kens:
But your heart's open to the day; while mine's
A pitchy night, with just a star or so
To light me to cover at the keeper's step.
You're honest, to your hurt: your honesty's
A knife that cuts through all; and will be cutting--
Hacking and jabbing, and thirsting to draw blood;
And turning in the w