Miss Civilization | Page 8

a year--without any risk of going to jail. None of THEM is afraid to go out in public with his wife and children. THEY'RE not afraid to ask a policeman what time it is. They don't have to wear black masks, nor ruin their beautiful complexions with burnt cork.
REDDY: Ah, go on. Who'd give ME a job?
ALICE: Whom did you ever ask for one?
REDDY: (to HARRY) Pass me some more of that pie like mother used to make.
HATCH: Yes, there are clerks and shopkeepers working behind a counter twenty-four hours a day, but they don't make ten thousand a year, and no one ever hears of THEM. There's no FAME in their job.
ALICE: Fame! Oh, how interesting. Are you--a celebrity?
HATCH: I'm quite as well known as I care to be. Now, tomorrow, all the papers will be talking about this. There'll be columns about us three. No one will know we are the ones they're talking about--
REDDY: I hope not.
HATCH: But the men in our profession will know. And they'll say, "That was a neat job of So-and-so's last night." That's fame. Why, we've got a reputation from one end of this country to the other.
HARRY: That's right! There's some of us just as well known as--Mister-- Santos--Dumont.
REDDY: And we fly just as high, too.
ALICE: (to HATCH) I suppose YOU--I suppose you're quite a FAMOUS burglar?
REDDY: Him? Why, he's as well known as Billy the Kid.
ALICE: Billy the kid, really! He sounds SO attractive. But I'm afraid--I don't think--that I ever heard of HIM.
REDDY: Never heard of Billy the Kid? What do you think of that?
HATCH: Well, then, I'm as well known as "Brace" Phillips, the Manhattan Bank robber.
REDDY: SURE he is.
HATCH: Don't tell me you never heard of him?
ALICE: I'm afraid not.
HATCH: Why, he's a head-liner. He's as well known as George Post. Coppy Farrell? Billy Porter?
ALICE: No. There you are. Now, you claim there is fame in this profession, and you have named five men who are at the top of it, and I've never heard of one of them. And I read the papers, too.
REDDY: Well, there's OTHER ladies who have heard of us. Real ladies. When I was doing my last bit in jail, I got a thousand letters from ladies asking for me photograph, and offering to marry me.
ALICE: Really? Well, that only proves that men--AS HUSBANDS--are more desirable in jail than out. (To HATCH) No, it's a poor life.
HATCH: It's a poor life you people lead with us to worry you. There's seventy millions of you in the United States, and only a few of us, and yet we keep you guessing all the year round. Why, we're the last thing you think of at night when you lock the doors, we're the first thing you think of in the morning when you feel for the silver basket. We're just a few up against seventy millions. I tell you there's fame and big money and a free life in my business.
ALICE: Yes, it's a free life until you go to jail. It's this way. You're barbarians, and there's no place for you in a civilized community-- except in jail. Everybody is working against you. Every city has its police force;almost every house nowadays has a private watchman. And if we want to raise a hue and cry after you, there are the newspapers, and the telegraph, and the telephone (nods at telephone) and the cables all over the--
HATCH: (Grimly) Thank you. One moment, please. (Throws open overcoat, showing that it is lined with burglars' jimmies, chisels, and augers..)
ALICE: My! What an interesting coat. It looks like a tool chest. Just the coat for an automobile trip.
HATCH: Harry, cut those telephone wires. (Hands barbed-wire cutter to HARRY. To ALICE) Thank you for reminding me.
ALICE: Oh, not at all. You've nothing to thank me for. (HARRY goes to telephone. To HARRY) Don't make a noise doing that. Don't wake my mother. (To HATCH) She's nervous, and she's ill, and if you wake her, or frighten her, I'll keep the police after you until every one of you is in jail.
HATCH: You won't keep after us very far when I've tied you up. Bring me those curtain cords, Harry.
ALICE: Oh, really, that's too ridiculous. (Listens apprehensively)
HATCH: Sorry I had to bust up your still alarm, but after we go, we can't have you chatting with the police. If you hadn't so kindly given me a tip about the telephone, I might have gone off and clean forgot that.
(HARRY takes curtain cords from window curtains.)
REDDY: I'm afraid pretty polly talked too much that time. We ain't all stupid.
ALICE: No, so I see, so I see. It was careless of me. But everybody you call upon may not be so careless.
HATCH: Well, I've won out for twenty years. I've