Stephen Archer, and Other Tales Part 37

ACT III.

SCENE.--_A garret-room_. MATTIE. SUSAN.

_Mat_. At the worst we've got to die some day, Sue, and I don't know but hunger may be as easy a way as another.

_Sus_. I'd rather have a choice, though. And it's not hunger I would choose.

_Mat_. There are worse ways.

_Sus_. Never mind: we don't seem likely to be bothered wi' choosin'.

_Mat_. There's that b.u.t.ton-hole done. (_Lays down her work with a sigh, and leans back in her chair_.)

_Sus_. I'll take it to old Nathan. It'll be a chop a-piece. It's wonderful what a chop can do to hearten you up.

_Mat_. I don't think we ought to buy chops, dear. We must be content with bread, I think.

_Sus_. Bread, indeed!

_Mat_. Well, it's something to eat.

_Sus_. Do you call it eatin' when you see a dog polishin' a bone?

_Mat_. Bread's very good with a cup of tea.

_Sus_. Tea, indeed! Fawn-colour, trimmed with sky-blue!--If you'd mentioned lobster-salad and sherry, now!

_Mat_. I never tasted lobster-salad.

_Sus_. I have, though; and I do call lobster-salad good. You don't care about your wittles: _I_ do. When I'm hungry, I'm not at all comfortable.

_Mat_. Poor dear Sue! There is a crust in the cupboard.

_Sus_. I _can't_ eat crusts. I want summat nice. I ain't dyin' of 'unger. It's only I'm peckish. _Very_ peckish, though. I could eat--let me see what I _could_ eat:--I could eat a lobster-salad, and two dozen oysters, and a lump of cake, and a wing and a leg of a chicken--if it was a spring chicken, with watercreases round it--and a Bath-bun, and a sandwich; and in fact I don't know what I couldn't eat, except just that crust in the cupboard. And I do believe I could drink a whole bottle of champagne.

_Mat_. I don't know what one of those things tastes like--scarce one; and I don't believe you do either.

_Sus_. Don't I?--I never did taste champagne, but I've seen them eating lobster-salad many a time;--girls not half so good-lookin' as you or me, Mattie, and fine gentlemen a waitin' upon 'em. Oh dear! I _am_ so hungry! Think of having your supper with a real gentleman as talks to you as if you was fit to talk to--not like them Jew-tailors, as tosses your work about as if it dirtied their fingers--and them none so clean for all their fine rings!

_Mat_. I saw Nathan's Joseph in a pastrycook's last Sat.u.r.day, and a very pretty girl with him, poor thing!

_Sus_. Oh the hussy to let that beast pay for her!

_Mat_. I suppose she was hungry.

_Sus_. I'd die before I let a sn.o.b like that treat _me_. No, Mattie! I spoke of a _real_ gentleman.

_Mat_. Are you sure you wouldn't take Nathan's Joseph for a gentleman if he was civil to you?

_Sus_. Thank you, miss! I know a sham from a real gentleman the moment I set eyes on him.

_Mat_. What do you mean by a real gentleman, Susan?

_Sus_. A gentleman as makes a lady of his girl.

_Mat_. But what sort of lady, Sue? The poor girl may fancy herself a lady, but only till she's left in the dirt. That sort of gentleman makes fine speeches to your face, and calls you horrid names behind your back.

Sue, dear, don't have a word to say to one of them--if he speaks ever so soft.

_Sus_. Lawks, Mattie! they ain't all one sort.

_Mat_. You won't have more than one sort to choose from. They may be rough or civil, good-natured or bad, but they're all the same in this, that not one of them cares a pin more for you than if you was a horse--no--nor half a quarter so much. Don't for G.o.d's sake have a word to say to one of them. If I die, Susan--

_Sus_. If you do, Matilda--if you go and do that thing, I'll take to gin--that's what I'll do. Don't say I didn't act fair, and tell you beforehand.

_Mat_. How can I help dying, Susan?

_Sus_. I say, Don't do it, Mattie. We'll fall out, if you do. Don't do it, Matilda--La! there's that lumping Bill again--_al_ways a comin' up the stair when you don't want him!

_Enter_ BILL.

_Mat_. Well, Bill, how have you been getting on?

_Bill_. Pretty tollol, Mattie. But I can't go on so. (_Holds out his stool_.) It ain't respectable.

_Mat_. What ain't respectable? Everything's respectable that's honest.

_Bill_. Why, who ever saw a respectable shiner goin' about with a three-legged stool for a blackin' box? It ain't the thing. The rig'lars chaffs me fit to throw it at their 'eads, they does--only there's too many on 'em, an' I've got to dror it mild. A box I must have, or a feller's ockypation's gone. Look ye here! One bob, one tanner, and a joey! There! that's what comes of never condescending to an 'a'penny.

_Sus_. Bless us! what mighty fine words we've got a waitin' on us!

_Bill_. If I 'ave a weakness, Miss Susan, it's for the right word in the right place--as the coster said to the devil-dodger as blowed him up for purfane swearin'.--When a gen'leman hoffers me an 'a'penny, I axes him in the purlitest manner I can a.s.sume, to oblige me by givin'

of it to the first beggar he may 'ave the good fort'n to meet. _Some_ on 'em throws down the 'a'penny. Most on 'em makes it a penny.--But I say, Mattie, you don't want n.o.body arter you--do you now?

_Mat_. I don't know what you mean by that, Bill.

_Bill_. You don't want a father--do you now? Do she, Susan?

_Sus_. We want no father a hectorin' here, Bill. You 'ain't seen one about, have you?

_Bill_. I seen a rig'lar swell arter Mattie, anyhow.

_Mat_. What do you mean, Bill? Bill. A rig'lar swell--I repeats it--a astin' arter a young woman by the name o' Mattie.

_Sus_. (_pulling him aside_). Hold your tongue, Bill! You'll kill her!

You young viper! Hold your tongue, or I'll twist your neck. Don't you see how white she is?