each other helplessly.)

Bessie. He's made up his mind you would come back . . . to-morrow.

Harry. I can't hang about here till morning. Got no money to get a bed. Not a cent. But why won't to-day do?

Bessie. Because you've been too long away.

Harry (With force). Look here, they fairly drove me out. Poor mother nagged at me for being idle, and the old man said he would cut my soul out of my body rather than let me go to sea.

Bessie (Murmurs). He can bear no contradicting.

Harry (Continuing). Well, it looked as tho' he would do it too. So I went. (Moody.) It seems to me sometimes I was born to them by a mistake... in that other rabbit hutch of a house.

Bessie (A little mocking). And where do you think you ought to have been born by rights?

Harry. In the open—upon a beach—on a windy night.

Bessie (Faintly). Ah!

Harry. They were characters, both of them, by George! Shall I try the door?

Bessie. Wait. I must explain to you why it is to-morrow.

Harry. Aye. That you must, or...

(Window in H.'s cottage runs up.)

Capt. H.'s Voice (Above). A—grinning—information—fellow coming to worry me in my own garden! What next?

(Window rumbles down.)

Bessie. Yes. I must. (Lays hand on Harry's sleeve.) Let's get further off. Nobody ever comes this way after dark.

Harry (Careless laugh). Aye. A good road for a walk with a girl.

(They turn their backs on audience and move up the stage slowly. Close together. Harry bends his head over Bessie).

Bessie's Voice (Beginning eagerly). People here somehow did not take kindly to him.

Harry's Voice. Aye. Aye. I understand that.

(They walk slowly back towards the front.)

Bessie. He was almost ready to starve himself for your sake.

Harry. And I had to starve more than once for his whim.

Bessie. I'm afraid you've a hard heart. (Remains thoughtful.)

Harry. What for? For running away? (Indignant.) Why, he wanted to make a blamed lawyer's clerk of me.

(From here this scene goes on mainly near and about the street lamp.)

Bessie (Rousing herself). What are you? A sailor?

Harry. Anything you like. (Proudly.) Sailor enough to be worth my salt on board any craft that swims the seas.

Bessie. He will never, never believe it. He mustn't be contradicted.

Harry. Always liked to have his own way. And you've been encouraging him.

Bessie (Earnestly). No!—not in everything—not really!

Harry (Vexed laugh). What about that pretty tomorrow notion? I've a hungry chum in London—waiting for me.

Bessie (Defending herself). Why should I make the poor old friendless man miserable? I thought you were far away. I thought you were dead. I didn't know but you had never been born. I... I... (Harry turns to her. She desperately.) It was easier to believe it myself. (Carried away.) And after all it's true. It's come to pass. This is the to-morrow we've been waiting for.

Harry (Half perfunctorily). Aye. Anybody can see that your heart is as soft as your voice.

Bessie (As if unable to keep back the words). I didn't think you would have noticed my voice.

Harry (Already inattentive). H'm. Dashed scrape. This is a queer to-morrow, without any sort of today, as far as I can see. (Resolutely.) I must try the door.

Bessie. Well—try, then.

Harry (From gate looking over shoulder at Bessie). He ain't likely to fly out at me, is he? I would be afraid of laying my hands on him. The chaps are always telling me I don't know my own strength.

Bessie (In front). He's the most harmless creature that ever. ..

Harry. You wouldn't say so if you had seen him walloping me with a hard leather strap. (Walking up garden.) I haven't forgotten it in sixteen long years. (Rat-tat-tat twice.) Hullo, Dad. (Bessie intensely expectant. Rat-tat-tat.) Hullo, Dad—let me in. I am your own Harry. Straight. Your son Harry come back home—a day too soon.

(Window above rumbles up.)

Capt. H. (Seen leaning out, aiming with spade). Aha! Bessie (Warningly). Look out, Harry! (Spade falls.) Are you hurt? (Window rumbles down.) Harry (In the distance). Only grazed my hat.

Bessie. Thank God! (Intensely.) What'll he do now?

Harry (Comes forward, slamming gate behind him). Just like old times. Nearly licked the life out of me for wanting to go away, and now I come back he shies a confounded old shovel at my head. (Fumes. Laughs a little). I wouldn't care, only poor little Ginger—Ginger's my chum up in London—he will starve while I walk back all the way from here. (Faces Bessie blankly.) I spent my last twopence on a shave. ... Out of respect for the old man.

Bessie. I think, if you let me, I could manage to talk him round in a week, maybe.

(A muffled periodical bellowing had been heard faintly for some time.)

Harry (On the alert). What's this? Who's making this row? Hark! Bessie, Bessie. It's in your house, I believe.

Bessie (Without stirring, drearily). It's for me.

Harry (Discreetly, whispering). Good voice for a ship's deck in a squall. Your husband? (Steps out of lamplight.)

Bessie. No. My father. He's blind. (Pause). I'm not married.

(Bellowings grow louder.)

Harry. Oh, I say. What's up? Who's murdering him?

Bessie (Calmly). I expect he's finished his tea. (Bellowing continues regularly.)

Harry. Hadn't you better see to it? You'll have the whole town coming out here presently. (Bessie moves off.) I say! (Bessie stops.) Couldn't you scare up some bread and butter for me from that tea? I'm hungry. Had no breakfast.

Bessie (Starts off at the word "hungry," dropping to the ground the white woollen shawl). I won't be a minute. Don't go away.

Harry (Alone; picks up shawl absently, and, looking at it spread out in his hands, pronounces slowly). A—dam'—silly—scrape. (Pause. Throws shawl on arm. Strolls up and down. Mutters.) No money to get back. (Louder.) Silly little Ginger'll think I've got hold of the pieces and given an old shipmate the go by. One good shove—(Makes motion of bursting in door with his shoulders)—would burst that door in—I bet. (Looks about.) I wonder where the nearest bobby is! No. They would want to bundle me neck and crop into chokey. (Shudders.) Perhaps. It makes me dog sick to think of being locked up. Haven't got the nerve. Not for prison. (Leans against lamp-post.) And not a cent for my fare. I wonder if that girl now...

Bessie (Coming hastily forward, plate with bread and meat in hand). I didn't take time to get anything else....

Harry (Begins to eat). You're not standing treat to a beggar. My dad is a rich man—you know.

Bessie (Plate in hand). You resemble your father.

Harry. I was the very image of him in face from a boy—(Eats)—and that's about as far as it goes. He was always one of your domestic characters. He looked sick when he had to go to sea for a fortnight's trip. (Laughs.) He was all for house and home.

Bessie. And you? Have you never wished for a home? (Goes off with empty plate and puts it down hastily on Carvil's bench—out of sight.)

Harry (Left in front). Home! If I found myself shut up in what the old man calls a home, I would kick it down about my ears on the third day—or else go to bed and die before the week was out. Die in a house—ough!

Bessie (Returning; stops and speaks from garden railing). And where is it that you would wish to die?

Harry. In the bush, in the sea, on some blamed mountain-top for