Ticket, please.
DAVID. You can't think of anything clever for to go for to say now,
John.
MAGGIE. I hope you find that chair comfortable, young man.
JOHN. I have no complaint to make against the chair.
ALICK [who is really distressed]. A native of the town. The disgrace
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.
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