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Page 18
THE WOMAN [sceptically] Yus, I dessay.
THE MAN. Yus, you dessay! I know. Every loafer that can't do
nothink calls isself a painter. Well, I'm a real painter:
grainer, finisher, thirty-eight bob a week when I can get it.
THE WOMAN. Then why don't you go and get it?
THE MAN. I'll tell you why. Fust: I'm intelligent--fffff! it's
rotten cold here [he dances a step or two]--yes: intelligent
beyond the station o life into which it has pleased the
capitalists to call me; and they don't like a man that sees
through em. Second, an intelligent bein needs a doo share of
appiness; so I drink somethink cruel when I get the chawnce.
Third, I stand by my class and do as little as I can so's to
leave arf the job for me fellow workers. Fourth, I'm fly enough
to know wots inside the law and wots outside it; and inside it I
do as the capitalists do: pinch wot I can lay me ands on. In a
proper state of society I am sober, industrious and honest: in
Rome, so to speak, I do as the Romans do. Wots the consequence?
When trade is bad--and it's rotten bad just now--and the
employers az to sack arf their men, they generally start on me.
THE WOMAN. What's your name?
THE MAN. Price. Bronterre O'Brien Price. Usually called Snobby
Price, for short.
THE WOMAN. Snobby's a carpenter, ain't it? You said you was a
painter.
PRICE. Not that kind of snob, but the genteel sort. I'm too
uppish, owing to my intelligence, and my father being a Chartist
and a reading, thinking man: a stationer, too. I'm none of your
common hewers of wood and drawers of water; and don't you forget
it. [He returns to his seat at the table, and takes up his mug].
Wots YOUR name?
THE WOMAN. Rummy Mitchens, sir.
PRICE [quaffing the remains of his milk to her] Your elth, Miss
Mitchens.
RUMMY [correcting him] Missis Mitchens.
PRICE. Wot! Oh Rummy, Rummy! Respectable married woman, Rummy,
gittin rescued by the Salvation Army by pretendin to be a bad un.
Same old game!
RUMMY. What am I to do? I can't starve. Them Salvation lasses is
dear good girls; but the better you are, the worse they likes to
think you were before they rescued you. Why shouldn't they av a
bit o credit, poor loves? They're worn to rags by their work. And
where would they get the money to rescue us if we was to let on
we're no worse than other people? You know what ladies and
gentlemen are.
PRICE. Thievin swine! Wish I ad their job, Rummy, all the same.
Wot does Rummy stand for? Pet name props?
RUMMY. Short for Romola.
PRICE. For wot!?
RUMMY. Romola. It was out of a new book. Somebody me mother
wanted me to grow up like.
PRICE. We're companions in misfortune, Rummy. Both on us got
names that nobody cawnt pronounce. Consequently I'm Snobby and
you're Rummy because Bill and Sally wasn't good enough for our
parents. Such is life!
RUMMY. Who saved you, Mr. Price? Was it Major Barbara?
PRICE. No: I come here on my own. I'm goin to be Bronterre
O'Brien Price, the converted painter. I know wot they like. I'll
tell em how I blasphemed and gambled and wopped my poor old
mother--
RUMMY [shocked] Used you to beat your mother?
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