TARLETON. Begin with yourself, if you dont mind. Ive a good deal of business to do still before I die. Havnt you?
THE MAN. No. Thats just it: Ive no business to do. Do you know what my life is? I spend my days from nine to six--nine hours of daylight and fresh air--in a stuffy little den counting another man's money. Ive an intellect: a mind and a brain and a soul; and the use he makes of them is to fix them on his tuppences and his eighteenpences and his two pound seventeen and tenpences and see how much they come to at the end of the day and take care that no one steals them. I enter and enter, and add and add, and take money and give change, and fill cheques and stamp receipts; and not a penny of that money is my own: not one of those transactions has the smallest interest for me or anyone else in the world but him; and even he couldnt stand it if he had to do it all himself. And I'm envied:
aye, envied for the variety and liveliness of my job, by the poor devil of a bookkeeper that has to copy all my entries over again.
Fifty thousand entries a year that poor wretch makes; and not ten out of the fifty thousand ever has to be referred to again; and when all the figures are counted up and the balance sheet made out, the boss isnt a penny the richer than he'd be if bookkeeping had never been invented. Of all the damnable waste of human life that ever was invented, clerking is the very worst.
TARLETON. Why not join the territorials?
THE MAN. Because I shouldnt be let. He hasnt even the sense to see that it would pay him to get some cheap soldiering out of me. How can a man tied to a desk from nine to six be anything--be even a man, let alone a soldier? But I'll teach him and you a lesson. Ive had enough of living a dog's life and despising myself for it. Ive had enough of being talked down to by hogs like you, and wearing my life out for a salary that wouldut keep you in cigars. Youll never believe that a clerk's a man until one of us makes an example of one of you.
TARLETON. Despotism tempered by assassination, eh?
THE MAN. Yes. Thats what they do in Russia. Well, a business office is Russia as far as the clerks are concerned. So dont you take it so coolly. You think I'm not going to do it; but I am.
TARLETON. [rising and facing him] Come, now, as man to man! It's not my fault that youre poorer than I am; and it's not your fault that I'm richer than you. And if you could undo all that passed between me and your mother, you wouldnt undo it; and neither would she. But youre sick of your slavery; and you want to be the hero of a romance and to get into the papers. Eh? A son revenges his mother's shame.
Villain weltering in his gore. Mother: look down from heaven and receive your unhappy son's last sigh.
THE MAN. Oh, rot! do you think I read novelettes? And do you suppose I believe such superstitions as heaven? I go to church because the boss told me I'd get the sack if I didnt. Free England! Ha! [Lina appears at the pavilion door, and comes swiftly and noiselessly forward on seeing the man with a pistol in his hand].
TARLETON. Youre afraid of getting the sack; but youre not afraid to shoot yourself.
THE MAN. Damn you! youre trying to keep me talking until somebody comes. [He raises the pistol desperately, but not very resolutely].
LINA. [at his right elbow] Somebody has come.
THE MAN [turning on her] Stand off. I'll shoot you if you lay a hand on me. I will, by God.
LINA. You cant cover me with that pistol. Try.
He tries, presenting the pistol at her face. She moves round him in the opposite direction to the hands of a clock with a light dancing step. He finds it impossible to cover her with the pistol: she is always too far to his left. Tarleton, behind him, grips his wrist and drags his arm straight up, so that the pistol points to the ceiling.
As he tries to turn on his assailant, Lina grips his other wrist.
LINA. Please stop. I cant bear to twist anyone's wrist; but I must if you dont let the pistol go.
THE MAN. [letting Tarleton take it from him] All right: I'm done.
Couldnt even do that job decently. Thats a clerk all over. Very well: send for your damned police and make an end of it. I'm accustomed to prison from nine to six: I daresay I can stand it from six to nine as well.
TARLETON. Dont swear. Thats a lady. [He throws the pistol on the writing table].
THE MAN. [looking at Lina in amazement] Beaten by a female! It needed only this. [He collapses in the chair near the worktable, and hides his face. They cannot help pitying him].
LINA. Old pal: dont call the police. Lend him a bicycle and let him get away.
THE MAN. I cant ride a bicycle. I never could afford one. I'm not even that much good.
TARLETON. If I gave you a hundred pound note now to go and have a good spree with, I wonder would you know how to set about it. Do you ever take a holiday?
THE MAN. Take! I got four days last August.
TARLETON. What did you do?
THE MAN. I did a cheap trip to Folkestone. I spent sevenpence on dropping pennies into silly automatic machines and peepshows of rowdy girls having a jolly time. I spent a penny on the lift and fourpence on refreshments. That cleaned me out. The rest of the time I was so miserable that I was glad to get back to the office. Now you know.
LINA. Come to the gymnasium: I'll teach you how to make a man of yourself. [The man is about to rise irresolutely, from the mere habit of doing what he is told, when Tarleton stops him].
TARLETON. Young man: dont. Youve tried to shoot me; but I'm not vindictive. I draw the line at putting a man on the rack. If you want every joint in your body stretched until it's an agony to live--until you have an unnatural feeling that all your muscles are singing and laughing with pain--then go to the gymnasium with that lady. But youll be more comfortable in jail.
LINA. [greatly amused] Was that why you went away, old pal? Was that the telegram you said you had forgotten to send?
Mrs Tarleton comes in hastily through the inner door.
