ving at the table.]

I've tried and done with it, I tell you. I've never been afraid of
what 's before me. You mark my words--if you think they've broke my
spirit, you're mistook. I 'll lie and rot sooner than arsk 'em
again. What makes you stand like that--you long-sufferin',
Gawd-forsaken image--that's why I can't keep my hands off you. So
now you know. Work! You can work, but you have n't the spirit of a
louse!

MRS. JONES. [Quietly.] You talk more wild sometimes when you're
yourself, James, than when you 're not. If you don't get work, how
are we to go on? They won't let us stay here; they're looking to
their money to-day, I know.

JONES. I see this BARTHWICK o' yours every day goin' down to
Pawlyment snug and comfortable to talk his silly soul out; an' I see
that young calf, his son, swellin' it about, and goin' on the
razzle-dazzle. Wot 'ave they done that makes 'em any better than
wot I am? They never did a day's work in their lives. I see 'em
day after day.

MRS. JONES. And I wish you wouldn't come after me like that, and
hang about the house. You don't seem able to keep away at all, and
whatever you do it for I can't think, because of course they notice
it.

JONES. I suppose I may go where I like. Where may I go? The other
day I went to a place in the Edgware Road. "Gov'nor," I says to the
boss, "take me on," I says. "I 'aven't done a stroke o' work not
these two months; it takes the heart out of a man," I says; "I 'm
one to work; I 'm not afraid of anything you can give me!" "My good
man," 'e says, "I 've had thirty of you here this morning. I took
the first two," he says, "and that's all I want." "Thank you, then
rot the world!" I says. "Blasphemin'," he says, "is not the way to
get a job. Out you go, my lad!" [He laughs sardonically.] Don't
you raise your voice because you're starvin'; don't yer even think
of it; take it lyin' down! Take it like a sensible man, carn't you?
And a little way down the street a lady says to me: [Pinching his
voice] "D' you want to earn a few pence, my man?" and gives me her
dog to 'old outside a shop-fat as a butler 'e was--tons o' meat had
gone to the makin' of him. It did 'er good, it did, made 'er feel
'erself that charitable, but I see 'er lookin' at the copper
standin' alongside o' me, for fear I should make off with 'er
bloomin' fat dog. [He sits on the edge of the bed and puts a boot
on. Then looking up.] What's in that head o' y