Miss Civilization | Page 8

then, while they're having supper, you and I will
talk. If you're going to gag me soon, I want to talk while I can. (Rises
and hands box to him.) Have a cigar?
HATCH: (takes cigar) Thanks.
ALICE: (standing with hand on back of chair) Now, I want to ask you
some questions. You are an intelligent man. Of course, you must be, or
you couldn't have kept out of jail for twenty years. To get on in your
business, a man must be intelligent, and he must have nerve, and
courage. Now--with those qualities, why, may I ask-- why are you so
stupid as to be a burglar?
HARRY: Stupid!
REDDY: Well, I like that!
HATCH: Stupid? Why, I make a living at it.
ALICE: How much of a living?
HATCH: Ten thousand a year.
ALICE: Ten thousand--well, suppose you made FIFTY thousand. What
good is even a hundred thousand for ONE year, if to get it you risk
going to prison for twenty years? That's not sensible. Merely as a
business proposition, to take the risk you do for ten thousand dollars is
stupid isn't it? I can understand a man's risking twenty years of his life
for some things--a man like Peary or Dewey, or Santos-Dumont. They
took big risks for big prizes. But there's thousands of men in this
country, not half as clever as you are, earning ten thousand 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