changed his lodgings: he moved out of Seventeen three years ago. He couldn’t stand the other people in the house. There was a man who played the accordion.
Milly (reproachfully)
He might have put you into something better than a bookbinder’s.
Hyacinth
He wasn’t obliged to put me into anything. After all, he’s not even a relation of Pinnie’s. And he has trouble enough supporting himself. I think he never married Pinnie—assuming he could persuade her—because he has no money.
(Pinnie returns with the teapot and servings. After placing everything on the table, she stalks out.)
Milly
Friendly, ain’t she?
Hyacinth
She’s very protective of me. She’s always afraid I’ll marry beneath me.
Milly
All the same, I didn’t expect to find you in a bookbinder’s.
Hyacinth
Where would you have looked to find me? Pity you couldn’t have told me in advance, I’d have endeavored to meet your expectations.
Milly
Do you know what they used to say in the Place? They say your father was a Lord. A real English Lord.
Hyacinth
Very likely. That’s the kind of gossip they spread in that precious hole.
Milly
Well, perhaps he was.
Hyacinth
He might have been Prime Minister for all the good it has done me.
Milly
Fancy, your talking as if you didn’t know!
Hyacinth (politely, but savagely)
Finish your tea. Don’t mind how I talk.
Milly
Well, you ’ave got a temper. I should’ve thought you’d be a clerk to a lawyer, or at a bank.
Hyacinth
Do they select them for their tempers?
Milly
You know what I mean. You used to be so clever. I never thought you’d follow a trade.
Hyacinth
I’m not clever enough to live on air.
Milly
You might be, really, for all the tea you drink! Why didn’t you go in for some profession?
Hyacinth (bitterly)
How was I to go in? Who the devil was to help me?
Milly
Haven’t you got a connection?
Hyacinth
Are you trying to trick me into boasting of my aristocratic connections? Sorry, I don’t have any.
Milly
Well, I’m sorry you’re only a journeyman.
Hyacinth
So am I! But the art of bookbinding is an exquisite art, I’ll say that. Even if it doesn’t pay well.
Milly
So Pinnie told me! Have you got some samples? I’d like to look at some.
Hyacinth (condescendingly)
You wouldn’t know how good they are.
Milly (irritated)
That’s just the way you used to talk to me years ago in the Place.
Hyacinth
I don’t care about that. I hate all that time.
Milly
If you come to that, so do I! You always used to have your nose in a book. I never thought you’d work with your hands.
Hyacinth
Depend upon it, I won’t do it an hour longer than I have to.
Milly
What will you do then?
Hyacinth
You’ll see someday. I had to do something. I couldn’t go on living off Pinnie. I took what I could get. Thank God I help her a little now.
Milly
You talk like a reg’lar gentleman.
Hyacinth
I’m not. I’m just an obscure little beggar born of a French woman to a supposed English Lord—living in a squalid little corner of London. And so, I’m a bookbinder.
Milly
I didn’t think I could ever fancy anyone in that line.
Hyacinth
Allow me to see you out.
Milly
I should be delighted. (aside) A reg’lar gentleman.
(Exit Milly and Hyacinth out the street door. After a moment, enter Mr. Vetch with Poupin, Madame Poupin, and Paul Muniment.)
Vetch
Pinnie was good enough to let us meet here.
(They close the shutters. Poupin coughs terribly, and is helped by his wife.)
Vetch
Are you all right, my dear Poupin?
Poupin
I’m suffering extremely, but we must all suffer so long as the social question is so abominably, iniquitously neglected.
Madame
Ah yes, the politicians never think of the poor. There are times when I ask myself how long it will go on.
Poupin (passionately)
It will go on till the measure of their infamy is full. Till the day of justice! Till the day the disinherited shake the globe!
Madame
Oh,
