BILL You want to go in and tell your Major of me, do you?

JENNY Oh please dont drag my hair. Let me go.

BILL Do you or dont you? [She stifles a scream.] Yes or no.

JENNY God give me strength —

BILL [striking her with his fist in the face]^{20} Go and shew her that, and tell her if she wants one like it to come and interfere with me. [JENNY, crying with pain, goes into the shed. He goes to the form and addresses the old man.] Here: finish your mess; and get out o my way.

SHIRLEY [springing up and facing him fiercely, with the mug in his hand] You take a liberty with me, and I’ll smash you over the face with the mug and cut your eye out. Aint you satisfied — young whelps like you — with takin the bread out o the mouths of your elders that have brought you up and slaved for you, but you must come shovin and cheekin and bullyin in here, where the bread o charity is sickenin in our stum micks ?

BILL [contemptuously, but backing a little] Wot good are you, you old palsy mug? Wot good are you?

SHIRLEY As good as you and better. I’ll do a day’s work agen you or any fat young soaker of your age. Go and take my job at Horrockses, where I worked for ten year. They want young men there: they cant afford to keep men over forty-five. Theyre very sorry — give you a character and happy to help you to get anything suited to your years — sure a steady man wont be long out of a job. Well, let em try you. Theyll find the differ. What do you know? Not as much as how to beeyave yourself — layin your dirty fist across the mouth of a respectable woman!

BILL Dont provoke me to lay it acrost yours: d‘ye hear?

SHIRLEY [with blighting contempt] Yes: you like an old man to hit, dont you, when youve finished with the women. I aint seen you hit a young one yet.

BILL [stung] You lie, you old soupkitchener, you. There was a young man here. Did I offer to hit him or did I not?

SHIRLEY Was he starvin or was he not? Was he a man or only a crosseyed thief an a loafer? Would you hit my son-in-law’s brother?

BILL Who’s he?

SHIRLEY Todger Fairmile o Balls Pond. Him that won £20 off the Japanese wrastler at the music hall by standin out 17 minutes 4 seconds agen him.

BILL [sullenly] I’m no music hall wrastler. Can he box?

SHIRLEY Yes: an you cant.

BILL Wot! I cant, cant I? Wots that you say [threatening him]?

SHIRLEY [not budging an inch] Will you box Todger Fairmile if I put him on to you? Say the word.

BILL [subsiding with a slouch] I’ll stand up to any man alive, if he was ten Todger Fairmiles. But I dont set up to be a perfes sional.

SHIRLEY [looking down on him with unfathomable disdain] You box! Slap an old woman with the back o your hand! You hadnt even the sense to hit her where a magistrate couldnt see the mark of it, you silly young lump of conceit and ignorance. Hit a girl in the jaw and ony make her cry! If Todger Fairmile’d done it, she wouldnt a got up inside o ten minutes, no more than you would if he got on to you.Yah! I’d set about you myself if I had a week’s feedin in me instead o two months starvation. [He returns to the table to finish his meal.]

BILL [following him and stooping over him to drive the taunt in] You lie! you have the bread and treacle in you that you come here to beg.

SHIRLEY [bursting into tears] Oh God! it’s true: I’m only an old pauper on the scrap heap. [Furiousty.] But youll come to it yourself; and then youll know. Youll come to it sooner than a teetotaller like me, fillin yourself with gin at this hour o the mornin!

BILL I’m no gin drinker, you old liar; but when I want to give my girl a bloomin good idin I like to av a bit o devil in me : see? An here I am, talkin to a rotten old blighter like you sted o givin her wot for. [Working himself into a rage.] I’m goin in there to fetch her out. [He makes vengefully for the shelter door. ]

SHIRLEY Youre goin to the station on a stretcher, more likely; and theyll take the gin and the devil out of you there when they get you inside. You mind what youre about: the major here is the Earl o Stevenage’s granddaughter.

BILL [checked] Garn![51]

SHIRLEY Youll see.

BILL [his resolution oozing] Well, I aint done nothin to er.

SHIRLEY Spose she said you did! who’d believe you?

BILL [very uneasy, skulking back to the corner of the penthouse] Gawd! theres no jastice in this country. To think wot them people can do! I’m as good as er.

SHIRLEY Tell her so. Its just what a fool like you would do. BARBARA, brisk and businesslike, comes from the shelter with a note book, and addresses herself to SHIRLEY. BILL, cowed, sits down in the corner on a form, and turns his back on them.

BARBARA Good morning.

SHIRLEY [standing up and taking off his hat] Good morning, miss.

BARBARA Sit down: make yourself at home. [He hesitates; but she puts a friendly hand on his shoulder and makes him obey.] Now then! since youve made friends with us, we want to know all about you. Names and addresses and trades.

SHIRLEY Peter Shirley. Fitter. Chucked out two months ago because I was too old.

BARBARA [not at all surprised] Youd pass still. Why didnt you dye your hair?

SHIRLEY I did. Me age come out at a coroner’s inquest on me daughter. ^{21}

BARBARA Steady?

SHIRLEY Teetotaller. Never out of a job before. Good worker. And sent to the knackers[52] like an old horse!

BARBARA No matter: if you did your part God will do his.

SHIRLEY [suddenly stubborn] My religion’s no concern of anybody but myself.

BARBARA [guessing] I know. Secularist?[53]

SHIRLEY [hotly] Did I offer to deny it?

BARBARA Why should you? My own father’s a Secularist, I think. Our Father — yours and mine — fulfils himself in many ways; and I daresay he knew what he was about when he made a Secularist of you. So buck up, Peter! we can always find a job for a steady man like you. [SHIRLEY, disarmed, touches his hat. She turns from him to BILL.] Whats your name?

BILL [insolently] Wots that to you?

BARBARA [calmly making a note] Afraid to give his name. Any trade?

BILL Who’s afraid to give his name? (Doggedly, with a sense of heroically defying the House of Lords in the person of Lord Stevenage. If you want to bring a charge agen me, bring it. [She waits, unruffled. My name’s Bill Walker.

BARBARA [as if the name were familiar: trying to remember how] Bill Walker? [Recollecting.] Oh, I know: youre the man that Jenny Hill was praying for inside just now. [She enters his name in her note book.]

BILL Who’s Jenny Hill? And what call has she to pray for me?

BARBARA I dont know. Perhaps it was you that cut her lip.

BILL [defiantty] Yes, it w a s me that cut her lip. I aint afraid o you.

BARBARA How could you be, since youre not afraid of God? Youre a brave man, Mr. Walker. It takes some pluck to do our work here; but none of us dare lift our hand against a girl like that, for fear of her father in heaven.

BILL [sullenly] I want none o your cantin jaw. I suppose you think I come here to beg from you, like this damaged lot here. Not me. I dont want your bread and scrape and catlap. [54] I dont believe in your Gawd, no more than you do yourself.

BARBARA (sunnily apologetic and ladylike, as on a new footing with him] Oh, I beg your pardon for putting your name down, Mr. Walker. I didnt understand. I’ll strike it out.