If I Had a Father

could make a merit of nursing my own boy! I did more for my black servant. I wish I had him here. Mrs. Clifford You would like to double the watch⁠—would you? Col. Gervaise Something has vexed you, Clara. Mrs. Clifford I never liked the scheme, and I like it less every day. Col. Gervaise I have had no chance yet. He has been ill all the time. I wish you would come and see him a little oftener. Mrs. Clifford He doesn’t want me. You are everything now. Besides, I can’t come alone. Col. Gervaise Why not? Mrs. Clifford Constance would fancy I did not want to take her. Col. Gervaise Then why not take her? Mrs. Clifford I have my reasons. Col. Gervaise What are they? Mrs. Clifford Never mind. Col. Gervaise I insist upon knowing them. Mrs. Clifford It would break my heart, Walter, to quarrel with you, but I will if you use such an expression. Col. Gervaise But why shouldn’t you bring Miss Lacordère with you? Mrs. Clifford He’s but a boy, and it might put some nonsense in his head. Col. Gervaise She’s a fine girl. You make a friend of her. Mrs. Clifford She’s a good girl, and a ladylike girl; but I don’t want to meddle with the bulwarks of society. I hope to goodness they will last my time. Col. Gervaise Clara, I begin to doubt whether pride be a Christian virtue. Mrs. Clifford I see! You’ll be a radical before long. Everything is going that way. Col. Gervaise I don’t care what I am, so I do what’s right. I’m sick of all that kind of thing. What I want is bare honesty. I believe I’m a tory as yet, but I should be a radical tomorrow if I thought justice lay on that side.⁠—If a man falls in love with a woman, why shouldn’t he marry her? Mrs. Clifford She may be unfit for him. Col. Gervaise How should he fall in love with her, then? Men don’t fall in love with birds. Mrs. Clifford It’s a risk⁠—a great risk. Col. Gervaise None the greater that he pleases himself, and all the more worth taking. I wish my poor boy⁠— Mrs. Clifford Your poor boy might please himself and yet not succeed in pleasing you, brother! Col. Gervaise Aside. She knows something.⁠—I must go and see about his dinner. Goodbye, sister. Mrs. Clifford Goodbye, then. You will have your own way! Col. Gervaise This once, Clara. Exeunt severally.

End of Act II.

Act III

Scene.⁠—A garret-room. Mattie. Susan.

Mattie	At the worst we’ve got to die some day, Sue, and I don’t know but hunger may be as easy a way as another.
Susan	I’d rather have a choice, though. And it’s not hunger I would choose.
Mattie	There are worse ways.
Susan	Never mind: we don’t seem likely to be bothered wi’ choosin’.
Mattie	There’s that buttonhole done. Lays down her work with a sigh, and leans back in her chair.
Susan	I’ll take it to old Nathan. It’ll be a chop apiece. It’s wonderful what a chop can do to hearten you up.
Mattie	I don’t think we ought to buy chops, dear. We must be content with bread, I think.
Susan	Bread, indeed!
Mattie	Well, it’s something to eat.
Susan	Do you call it eatin’ when you see a dog polishin’ a bone?
Mattie	Bread’s very good with a cup of tea.
Susan	Tea, indeed! Fawn-colour, trimmed with sky-blue!⁠—If you’d mentioned lobster-salad and sherry, now!
Mattie	I never tasted lobster-salad.
Susan	I have, though; and I do call lobster-salad good. You don’t care about your wittles: I do. When I’m hungry, I’m not at all comfortable.
Mattie	Poor dear Sue! There is a crust in the cupboard.
Susan	I can’t eat crusts. I want summat nice. I ain’t dyin’ of ’unger. It’s only I’m peckish. Very peckish, though. I could eat⁠—let me see what I could eat:⁠—I could eat a lobster-salad, and two dozen oysters, and a lump of cake, and a wing and a leg of a chicken⁠—if it was a spring chicken, with watercreases round it⁠—and a Bath-bun, and a sandwich; and in fact I don’t know what I couldn’t eat, except just that crust in the cupboard. And I do believe I could drink a whole bottle of champagne.
Mattie	I don’t know what one of those things tastes like⁠—scarce one; and I don’t believe you do either.
Susan	Don’t I?⁠—I never did taste champagne, but I’ve seen them eating lobster-salad many a time;⁠—girls not half so good-lookin’ as you or me, Mattie, and fine gentlemen a waitin’ upon ’em. Oh dear! I am so hungry! Think of having your supper with a real gentleman as talks to you as if you was fit to talk to⁠—not like them Jew-tailors, as tosses your work about as if it dirtied their fingers⁠—and them none so clean for all their fine rings!
Mattie	I saw Nathan’s Joseph in a pastrycook’s last Saturday, and a very pretty girl with him, poor thing!
Susan	Oh the hussy to let that beast pay for her!
Mattie	I suppose she was hungry.
Susan	I’d die before I let a snob like that treat me. No, Mattie! I spoke of a real gentleman.
Mattie	Are you sure you wouldn’t take Nathan’s Joseph for a gentleman if he was civil to you?
Susan	Thank you, miss! I know a sham from a real gentleman the moment I set eyes on him.
Mattie	What do you mean by a real gentleman, Susan?
Susan	A gentleman as makes a lady of his girl.
Mattie	But what sort of lady, Sue? The poor girl may fancy herself a lady, but only till she’s left in the dirt. That sort of gentleman makes fine speeches to your face, and calls you horrid names behind your back. Sue, dear, don’t have a word to say to one of them⁠—if he speaks ever so soft.
Susan	Lawks, Mattie! they ain’t all one sort.
Mattie	You won’t have more than one sort to choose from. They may be rough or civil, good-natured or bad, but they’re all the same in this, that not one of them cares a pin more for you