. .
MANSON. And your brother Joshua: what of him? Where is _he_ now?
ROBERT. _I_ don't know--gone to pot, like me! P'r'aps eatin' is
bleedin' 'eart out, same as I am, at the base ingratitood of the
world!
MANSON. Perhaps so!
ROBERT. Where was I? You mek me lose my air, shoving in with your
bit!
MANSON. You were saying that you hadn't a bad nature to begin with.
ROBERT [truculently]. No more I 'adn't! . . .
O' course, when she took an'--an' died, things was different: I
couldn't 'old up the same-- Somehow, I don't know, I lost my 'eart,
and . . .
MANSON. Yes? . . .
ROBERT. That's 'ow I come to lose my kid, my little kid . . .
Mind you, that was fifteen years ago: I was a rotter then, same as
you might be. I wasn't 'arf the man I am now . . .
_You_ can larf! A man can change a lot in fifteen years!
MANSON. _I_ didn't laugh.
ROBERT. Do you want to know wot's come over me since then? I
_work_--and work well: that's more than some of 'em can say-- And
I don't get much money for it, either! That ought to mek 'em feel
ashamed! I'm not the drunkard I was--not by 'arf! If I'm bitter,
oo's made me bitter? You cawn't be very sweet and perlite on
eighteen bob a week--_when yer get it_! I'll tell yer summat else:
I've eddicated myself since then--I'm not the gory fool I was--
_And_ they know it! They can't come playin' the 'anky with us,
same as they used to! It's _Nice Mister Working-man This and Nice
Mister Working-man That, will yer be so 'ighly hobliging as to 'and
over your dear little voting-paper_--you poor, sweet, muddy-nosed
old Idiot, as can't spot your natural enemy when yer see 'im! That
orter mek some on 'em sit up!
Fifteen years ago me an' my like 'adn't got a religion! By Gawd,
we 'av' one now! Like to 'ear wot it is?
MANSON.
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