a
prizefighter's nose, or something solider than me. I dont care about
your fist; but if everybody here dislikes me-- _[he is checked by a
sob]._ Well, I dont care. _[Trying to recover himself]_ I'm sorry I
intruded: I didnt know. _[Breaking down again]_ Oh you beast! you
pig! Swine, swine, swine, swine, swine! Now!

JOHNNY. All right, my lad, all right. Sling your mud as hard as you
please: it wont stick to me. What I want to know is this. How is it
that your father, who I suppose is the strongest man England has
produced in our time--

BENTLEY. You got that out of your halfpenny paper. A lot you know
about him!

JOHNNY. I dont set up to be able to do anything but admire him and
appreciate him and be proud of him as an Englishman. If it wasnt for
my respect for him, I wouldnt have stood your cheek for two days, let
alone two months. But what I cant understand is why he didnt lick it
out of you when you were a kid. For twenty-five years he kept a place
twice as big as England in order: a place full of seditious
coffee-colored heathens and pestilential white agitators in the middle
of a lot of savage tribes. And yet he couldnt keep you in order. I
dont set up to be half the man your father undoubtedly is; but, by
George, it's lucky for you you were not my son. I dont hold with my
own father's views about corporal punishment being wrong. It's
necessary for some people; and I'd have tried it on you until you
first learnt to howl and then to behave yourself.

BENTLEY. _[contemptuously]_ Yes: behavior wouldnt come naturally to
your son, would it?

JOHNNY. _[stung into sudden violence]_ Now you keep a civil tongue
in your head. I'll stand none of your snobbery. I'm just as proud of
Tarleton's Underwear as you are of your father's title and his K.C.B.,
and all the rest of it. My father began in a little hole of a shop in
Leeds no bigger than our pantry down the passage there. He--

BENTLEY. Oh yes: I know. Ive read it. "The Romance of Business, or
The Story of Tarleton's Underwear. Please Take One!" I took one the
day after I first met Hypatia. I went and bought half a dozen
unshrinkable vests for her sake.

JOHNNY. Well: did they shrink?

BENTLEY. Oh, dont be a fool.

JOHNNY. Never mind whether I'm a fool or not. Did they shrink?
Thats the point. Were they worth the money?

BENTLEY. I couldnt wear them: do you think my skin's as thick as
your customers' hides? I'