MANGAN [bouncing out of the chair in a fury and turning on them] Wake up! So you think I’ve been asleep, do you? [He kicks the chair violently back out of his way, and gets between them.] You throw me into a trance so that I can’t move hand or foot — I might have been buried alive! it’s a mercy I wasn‘t — and then you think I was only asleep. If you’d let me drop the two times you rolled me about, my nose would have been flattened for life against the floor. But I’ve found you all out, anyhow. I know the sort of people I’m among now. I’ve heard every word you’ve said, you and your precious father, and [to MRS HUSHABYE] you too. So I’m an object, am I? I’m a thing, am I? I’m a fool that hasn’t sense enough to feed myself properly, am I? I’m afraid of the men that would starve if it weren’t for the wages I give them, am I? I’m nothing but a disgusting old skinflint to be made a convenience of by designing women and fool managers of my works, am I? I’m —

MRS HUSHABYE [with the most elegant aplomb] Sh-sh-sh-sh-sh! Mr Mangan, you are bound in honor to obliterate from your mind all you heard while you were pretending to be asleep. It was not meant for you to hear.

MANGAN Pretending to be asleep! Do you think if I was only pretending that I’d have sprawled there helpless, and listened to such unfairness, such lies, such injustice and plotting and backbiting and slandering of me, if I could have up and told you what I thought of you! I wonder I didn’t burst.

MRS HUSHABYE [sweetly] You dreamt it all, Mr. Mangan. We were only saying how beautifully peaceful you looked in your sleep. That was all, wasn’t it, Ellie? Believe me, Mr Mangan, all those unpleasant things came into your mind in the last half second before you woke. Ellie rubbed your hair the wrong way; and the disagreeable sensation suggested a disagreeable dream.

MANGAN [doggedly] I believe in dreams.

MRS HUSHABYE So do I. But they go by contraries,[311] don’t they?

MANGAN [depths of emotion suddenly welling up in him] I shan’t forget, to my dying day, that when you gave me the glad eye that time in the garden, you were making a fool of me. That was a dirty low mean thing to do. You had no right to let me come near you if I disgusted you. It isn’t my fault if I’m old and haven’t a moustache like a bronze candlestick as your husband band has. There are things no decent woman would do to a man — like a man hitting a woman in the breast. HESIONE, utterly shamed, sits down on the sofa and covers her face with her hands. MANGAN sits down also on his chair and begins to cry like a child. ELLIE stares at them. MRS HUSHABYE, at the distressing sound he makes, takes down her hands and looks at him. She rises and runs to him.

MRS HUSHABYE Don’t cry: I can’t bear it. Have I broken your heart? I didn’t know you had one. How could I?

MANGAN I’m a man, ain’t I?

MRS HUSHABYE [half coaxing, half rallying, altogether tenderly] Oh no: not what I call a man. Only a Boss: just that and nothing else. What business has a Boss with a heart?

MANGAN Then you’re not a bit sorry for what you did, nor ashamed?

MRS HUSHABYE I was ashamed for the first time in my life when you said that about hitting a woman in the breast, and I found out what I’d done. My very bones blushed red. You’ve had your revenge, Boss. Aren’t you satisfied?

MANGAN Serve you right! Do you hear? Serve you right! You’re just cruel. Cruel.

MRS HUSHABYE Yes: cruelty would be delicious if one could only find some sort of cruelty that didn’t really hurt. By the way [sitting down beside him on the arm of the chair], what’s your name? It’s not really Boss, is it?

MANGAN [shortly] If you want to know, my name’s Alfred.

MRS HUSHABYE [springs up] Alfred!! Ellie, he was christened after Tennyson!!!

MANGAN [rising] I was christened after my uncle, and never had a penny from him, damn him! What of it?

MRS HUSHABYE It comes to me suddenly that you are a real person: that you had a mother, like anyone else. [Putting her hands on his shoulders and surveying him.] Little Alf!

MANGAN Well, you have a nerve.

MRS HUSHABYE And you have a heart, Alfy, a whimpering little heart, but a real one. [Releasing him suddenly.] Now run and make it up with Ellie. She has had time to think what to say to you, which is more than I had [she goes out quickly into the garden by the port door].

MANGAN That woman has a pair of hands that go right through you.

ELLIE Still in love with her, in spite of all we said about you?

MANGAN Are all women like you two? Do they never think of anything about a man except what they can get out of him? You weren’t even thinking that about me. You were only thinking whether your gloves would last.

ELLIE I shall not have to think about that when we are married.

MANGAN And you think I am going to marry you after what I heard there!

ELLIE You heard nothing from me that I did not tell you before.

MANGAN Perhaps you think I can’t do without you.

ELLIE I think you would feel lonely without us all, now, after coming to know us so well.

MANGAN [with something like a yell of despair] Am I never to have the last word?

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [appearing at the starboard garden door] There is a soul in torment here. What is the matter?

MANGAN This girl doesn’t want to spend her life wondering how long her gloves will last.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [passing through] Don’t wear any. I never do [he goes into the pantry].

LADY UTTERWORD [appearing at the port garden door, in a handsome dinner dress] Is anything the matter?

ELLIE This gentleman wants to know is he never to have the last word?

LADY UTTERWORD [coming forward to the sofa] I should let him have it, my dear. The important thing is not to have the last word, but to have your own way.

MANGAN She wants both.

LADY UTTERWORD She won’t get them, Mr Mangan. Providence always has the last word.

MANGAN [desperately] Now you are going to come religion over me. In this house a man’s mind might as well be a football. I’m going. [He makes for the hall, but is stopped by a hail from the captain, who has just emerged from his pantry].

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER Whither away, Boss Mangan?

MANGAN To hell out of this house: let that be enough for you and all here.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER You were welcome to come: you are free to go. The wide earth, the high seas, the spacious skies are waiting for you outside.

LADY UTTERWORD But your things, Mr Mangan. Your bag, your comb and brushes, your pyjamas —

HECTOR [who has just appeared in the port doorway in a handsome Arab costume] Why should the escaping slave take his chains with him?

MANGAN That’s right, Hushabye. Keep the pyjamas, my lady, and much good may they do you.

HECTOR [advancing to LADY UTTERWORD’s left hand] Let us all go out into the night and leave everything behind us.

MANGAN You stay where you are, the lot of you. I want no company, especially female company.

ELLIE Let him go. He is unhappy here. He is angry with us.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER Go, Boss Mangan; and when you have found the land where there is happiness and where there are no women, send me its latitude and longitude; and I will join you there.

LADY UTTERWORD You will certainly not be comfortable without your luggage, Mr Mangan.

ELLIE [impatient] Go, go: why don’t you go? It is a heavenly night: you can sleep on the heath. Take my waterproof to lie on: it is hanging up in the hall.

HECTOR Breakfast at nine, unless you prefer to breakfast with the captain at six.

ELLIE Good night, Alfred.