What Every Woman Knows | Page 6

to your family! I feel pity for the Shands this night.
JOHN [glowering]. I'll thank you, Mr. Wylie, not to pity my family.
JAMES. Canny, canny.
MAGGIE [that sense of justice again]. I think you should let the young man explain. It mayn't be so bad as we thought.
DAVID. Explain away, my billie.
JOHN. Only the uneducated would need an explanation. I'm a student, [with a little passion] and I'm desperate for want of books. You have all I want here; no use to you but for display; well, I came here to study. I come twice weekly. [Amazement of his hosts.]
DAVID [who is the first to recover]. By the window.
JOHN. Do you think a Shand would so far lower himself as to enter your door? Well, is it a case for the police?
JAMES. It is.
MAGGIE [not so much out of the goodness of her heart as to patronise the Shands]. It seems to me it's a case for us all to go to our beds and leave the young man to study; but not on that chair. [And she wheels the chair away from him.]
JOHN. Thank you, Miss Maggie, but I couldn't be beholden to you.
JAMES. My opinion is that he's nobody, so out with him.
JOHN. Yes, out with me. And you'll be cheered to hear I'm likely to be a nobody for a long time to come.
DAVID [who had been beginning to respect him]. Are you a poor scholar?
JOHN. On the contrary, I'm a brilliant scholar.
DAVID. It's siller, then?
JOHN [glorified by experiences he has shared with many a gallant soul]. My first year at college I lived on a barrel of potatoes, and we had just a sofa-bed between two of us; when the one lay down the other had to get up. Do you think it was hardship? It was sublime. But this year I can't afford it. I'll have to stay on here, collecting the tickets of the illiterate, such as you, when I might be with Romulus and Remus among the stars.
JAMES [summing up]. Havers.
DAVID [in whose head some design is vaguely taking shape]. Whist, James. I must say, young lad, I like your spirit. Now tell me, what's your professors' opinion of your future.
JOHN. They think me a young man of extraordinary promise.
DAVID. You have a name here for high moral character.
JOHN. And justly.
DAVID. Are you serious-minded?
JOHN. I never laughed in my life.
DAVID. Who do you sit under in Glasgow?
JOHN. Mr. Flemister of the Sauchiehall High.
DAVID. Are you a Sabbath-school teacher?
JOHN. I am.
DAVID. One more question. Are you promised?
JOHN. To a lady?
DAVID. Yes.
JOHN. I've never given one of them a single word of encouragement. I'm too much occupied thinking about my career.
DAVID. So. [He reflects, and finally indicates by a jerk of the head that he wishes to talk with his father behind the door.]
JAMES [longingly]. Do you want me too?
[But they go out without even answering him.]
MAGGIE. I don't know what maggot they have in their heads, but sit down, young man, till they come back.
JOHN. My name's Mr. Shand, and till I'm called that I decline to sit down again in this house.
MAGGIE. Then I'm thinking, young sir, you'll have a weary wait.
[While he waits you can see how pinched his face is. He is little more than a boy, and he seldom has enough to eat. DAVID and ALICK return presently, looking as sly as if they had been discussing some move on the dambrod, as indeed they have.]
DAVID [suddenly become genial]. Sit down, Mr. Shand, and pull in your chair. You'll have a thimbleful of something to keep the cold out? [Briskly] Glasses, Maggie.
[She wonders, but gets glasses and decanter from the sideboard, which JAMES calls the chiffy. DAVID and ALICK, in the most friendly manner, also draw up to the table.]
You're not a totaller, I hope?
JOHN [guardedly]. I'm practically a totaller.
DAVID. So are we. How do you take it? Is there any hot water, Maggie?
JOHN. If I take it at all, and I haven't made up my mind yet, I'll take it cold.
DAVID. You'll take it hot, James?
JAMES [also sitting at the table but completely befogged]. No, I--
DAVID [decisively] I think you'll take it hot, James.
JAMES [sulking]. I'll take it hot.
DAVID. The kettle, Maggie.
[JAMES has evidently to take it hot so that they can get at the business now on hand, while MAGGIE goes kitchenward for the kettle.]
ALICK. Now, David, quick, before she comes back.
DAVID. Mr. Shand, we have an offer to make you.
JOHN [warningly]. No patronage.
ALICK. It's strictly a business affair.
DAVID. Leave it to me, father. It's this--[But to his annoyance the suspicious MAGGIE has already returned with the kettle.] Maggie, don't you see that you're not wanted?
MAGGIE [sitting down by the fire and resuming her knitting]. I do, David.
DAVID. I have a proposition to put before Mr. Shand, and women are