Hobson's Choice: A Lancashire Comedy in Four Acts Part 23

Heeler, he said, and tell him I'm very ill, and I came and told you.

Then he said he would get up, and I was to have his breakfast ready for him, and he'd see you down here. (_Goes to fire_, R.)

JIM (_moving towards door up_ R.). Nonsense, Tubby. Of course, I'll go up to him.

TUBBY. You know what he is, sir. I'll get blamed if you go, and he's short-tempered this morning.

JIM. I don't want to get you into trouble, Tubby. (_He sits_ R. _of table_.)

TUBBY. Thank you, Mr. Heeler. (_Puts bacon on plate and plate down on the hearth_.)

JIM. I quite thought it was something serious.

TUBBY. If you ask me, it is. (_Coming back to table_.)

JIM. Which way?

TUBBY (_cutting bread_). Every way you look at it. Mr. Hobson's not his own old self, and the shop's not its own old self, and look at me. Now I ask you, Mr. Heeler, man to man, is this work for a foreman shoe hand?

Cooking and laying tables and--

JIM. By all accounts there's not much else for you to do.

TUBBY. There's better things than being a housemaid, if it's only making clogs. (_Crosses to fire to toast_.)

JIM. They tell me clogs are a cut line.

TUBBY. Well, what are you to do? There's nothing else wanted. (_Turns_.) Hobson's in a bad way, and I'm telling no secret when I say it. It's a fact that's known.

JIM. It's a thousand pities with an old-established trade like this.

TUBBY. And who's to blame?

JIM. I don't think you ought to discuss that with me, Tubby.

TUBBY. Don't you? I'm an old servant of the master's, and I'm sticking to him now when everybody's calling me a doting fool because I don't look after Tubby Wadlow first, and if that don't give me the right to say what I please, I don't know. It's temper's ruining this shop, Mr.

Heeler. Temper and obstinacy.

JIM. They say in Chapel Street it's Willie Mossop.

TUBBY. Willie's a good lad, though I say it that trained him. He hit us hard, did Willie, but we'd have got round that in time. With care, you understand, and tact. Tact. That's what the gaffer lacks. Miss Maggie, now ... well, she's a marvel, aye, a fair knock-out. Not slavish, mind you. Stood up to the customers all the time, but she'd a way with her that sold the goods and made them come again for more. Look at us now.

Men a.s.sistants in the shop.

JIM. Cost more than women.

TUBBY. Cost? They'd be dear at any price. Look here, Mr. Heeler, take yourself. When you go to buy a pair of boots do you like to be tried on by a man or a nice soft young woman?

JIM. Well--

TUBBY. There you are. Stands to reason. It's human nature.

JIM. But there are two sides to that, Tubby. Look at the other.

TUBBY. Ladies?

JIM. Yes.

TUBBY. Ladies that are ladies wants trying on by their own s.e.x, and them that aren't buys clogs. It's the good-cla.s.s trade that pays, and Hobson's have lost it.

(_Enter_ HOBSON _up_ R., _unshaven, without collar. He comes down stage between them_.)

JIM (_with cheerful sympathy_). Well, Henry!

HOBSON (_with acute melancholy and self-pity_). Oh, Jim! Oh, Jim! Oh, Jim!

TUBBY. Will you sit on the arm-chair by the fire or at the table?

HOBSON. The table? Breakfast? Bacon? Bacon, and I'm like this.

(JIM _a.s.sists him to arm-chair_.)

JIM. When a man's like this he wants a woman about the house, Henry.

HOBSON (_sitting_). I'll want then.

TUBBY. Shall I go for Miss Maggie, sir?--Mrs. Mossop, I mean.

JIM. I think your daughters should be here.

HOBSON. They should. Only they're not. They're married, and I'm deserted by them all and I'll die deserted, then perhaps they'll be sorry for the way they've treated me. Tubby, have you got no work to do in the shop?

TUBBY. I might find some if I looked hard.

HOBSON. Then go and look. And take that bacon with you. I don't like the smell.

TUBBY (_getting bacon_). Are you sure you wouldn't like Miss Maggie here? I'll go for her and--(_He holds the bacon very close to_ HOBSON'S _face_.)

HOBSON. Oh, go for her. Go for the devil. What does it matter who you go for? I'm a dying man.

(TUBBY _takes bacon and goes out_ L.)

JIM. What's all this talk about dying, Henry?

HOBSON. Oh, Jim! Oh, Jim! I've sent for the doctor. We'll know soon how near the end is.

JIM. Well, this is very sudden. (_Sits chair,_ R.) You've never been ill in your life.

HOBSON. It's been saved up, and all come now at once.

JIM. What are your symptoms, Henry?