60 Plays: The George Bernard Shaw Edition (Illustrated). GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
Have I said a word?
COKANE True: True. Quite true. Harry: be just.
LICKCHEESE Mark my words, gentlemen: He’ll find what a man he’s lost the very first week’s rents the new man’ll bring him. Youll find the difference yourself, Dr Trench, if you or your children come into the property. Ive took money there when no other collector alive would have wrung it out. And this is the thanks I get for it! Why, see here, gentlemen! Look at that bag of money on the table. Hardly a penny of that but there was a hungry child crying for the bread it would have bought. But I got it for him, screwed and worried and bullied it out of them. I look here, gentlemen : I’m pretty seasoned to the work; but theres money there that I couldnt have taken if it hadnt been for the thought of my own children depending on me for giving him satisfaction. And because I charged him four-and-twenty shillin’ to mend a staircase that three women have been hurt on, and that would have got him prosecuted for manslaughter if it had been let go much longer, he gives me the sack. Wouldnt listen to a word, though I would have offered to make up the money out of my own pocket aye, and am willing to do it still if you will only put in a word for me.
TRENCH [aghast] You took money that ought to have fed starving children! Serve you right! If I had been the father of one of those children, I’d have given you something worse than the sack. I wouldnt say a word to save your soul, if you have such a thing. Mr Sartorius was quite right.
LICKCHEESE [Staring at him, surprised into contemptuous amusement in the midst of his anxiety.] Just listen to this! Well, you are an innocent young gentleman. Do you suppose he sacked me because I was too hard? Not a bit on it: It was because I wasnt hard enough. I never heard him say he was satisfied yet: No, nor he wouldnt, not if I skinned em alive, I dont say he’s the worst landlord in London: He couldnt be worse than some; but he’s no better than the worst I ever had to do with. And, though I say it, I’m better than the best collector he ever done business with. Ive screwed more and spent less on his properties than anyone would believe that knows what such properties are. I know my merits, Dr Trench, and will speak for myself if no one else will.
COKANE What description of properties? Houses?
LICKCHEESE Tenement houses, let from week to week by the room or half room aye, or quarter room. It pays when you know how to work it, sir. Nothing like it. It’s been calculated on the cubic foot of space, sir, that you can get higher rents letting by the room than you can for a mansion in Park Lane.
TRENCH I hope Mr Sartorius hasnt much of that sort of property, however it may pay.
LICKCHEESE He has nothing else, sir; and he shews his sense in it, too. Every few hundred pounds he could scrape together he bought old houses with houses that you wouldnt hardly look at without holding your nose. He has em in St Giles’s: He has em in Marylebone: He has em in Bethnal Green. Just look how he lives himself, and youll see the good of it to him. He likes a low death-rate and a gravel soil for himself, he does. You come down with me to Robbins’s Row; and I’ll shew you a soil and a death-rate, so I will! And, mind you, it’s me that makes it pay him so well. Catch him going down to collect his own rents! Not likely!
TRENCH Do you mean to say that all his property all his means come from this sort of thing?
LICKCHEESE Every penny of it, sir. [Trench, overwhelmed, has to sit down.]
COKANE [looking compassionately at him] Ah, my dear fellow, the love of money is the root of all evil.
LICKCHEESE Yes, sir; and we’d all like to have the tree growing in our garden.
COKANE [revolted] Mr Lickcheese: I did not address myself to you. I do not wish to be severe with you; but there is something peculiarly repugnant to my feelings in the calling of a rent collector.
LICKCHEESE It’s no worse than many another. I have my children looking to me.
COKANE True: I admit it. So has our friend Sartorius. His affection for his daughter is a redeeming point, a redeeming point, certainly.
LICKCHEESE She’s a lucky daughter, sir. Many another daughter has been turned out upon the streets to gratify his affection for her. Thats what business is, sir, you see. Come, sir: I think your friend will say a word for me now he knows I’m not in fault.
TRENCH [rising angrily] I will not. It’s a damnable business from beginning to end; and you deserve no better luck for helping in it. Ive seen it all among the outpatients at the hospital; and it used to make my blood boil to think that such things couldnt be prevented.
LICKCHEESE [his suppressed spleen breaking out] Oh indeed, sir. But I suppose youll take your share when you marry Miss Blanche, all the same. [Furiously] Which of us is the worse, I should like to know: Me that wrings the money out to keep a home over my children, or you that spend it and try to shove the blame on to me?
COKANE A most improper observation to address to a gentleman, Mr Lickcheese! A most revolutionary sentiment!
LICKCHEESE Perhaps so. But then Robbins’s Row aint a school for manners. You collect a week or two there youre welcome to my place if I cant keep it for myself and youll hear a little plain speaking, so you will.
COKANE [with dignity] Do you know to whom you are speaking, my good man?
LICKCHEESE [recklessly] I know well enough who I’m speaking to. What do I care for you, or a thousand such? I’m poor: Thats enough to make a rascal of me. No consideration for me, nothing to be got by saying a word for me! [Suddenly cringing to Trench] Just a word, sir. It would cost you nothing. [Sarforius appears at the door, unobserved.] Have some feeling for the poor.
TRENCH I’m afraid you have shewn very little, by your own confession.
LICKCHEESE [breaking out again] More than your precious father-in-law, anyhow. I — [Sartorius’s voice, striking in with deadly coldness, paralyzes him.]
SARTORIUS You will come here tomorrow, not later than ten, Mr Lickcheese, to conclude our business. I shall trouble you no further to-day. {Lickcheese, cowed, goes out amid dead silence. Sartorius continues, after an awkward pause] He is one of my agents, or rather was; for I have unfortunately had to dismiss him for repeatedly disregarding my instructions. [Trench says nothing. Sartorius throws off his embarrassment, and assumes a jocose, rallying air, unbecoming to him under any circumstances, and just now almost unbearably jarring.] Blanche will be down presently, Harry [Trench recoils] I suppose I must call you Harry now. What do you say to a stroll through the garden, Mr Cokane? We are celebrated here for our flowers.
COKANE Charmed, my dear sir, charmed. Life here is an idyll a perfect idyll. We were just dwelling on it.
SARTORIUS [slyly] Harry can follow with Blanche. She will be down directly.
TRENCH [hastily] No. I cant face her just now.
SARTORIUS [rallying him] Indeed! Ha, ha! [The laugh, the first they have heard from him, sets Trench’s teeth on edge. Cokane is taken aback, but instantly recovers himself.]
COKANE Ha! ha! ha! Ho! ho!
TRENCH But you dont understand.
SARTORIUS Oh, I think we do, I think we do. Eh, Mr Cokane? Ha! ha!
COKANE I should think we do. Ha! ha! ha!
[They go out together, laughing at him. He collapses into a chair, shuddering in every nerve. Blanche appears at the door. Her face lights up when she sees that he is alone. She trips noiselessly to the back of his chair and clasps her hands over his eyes. With a convulsive start and exclamation he springs up and breaks away from her.]
BLANCHE [astonished] Harry!
TRENCH [with distracted politeness] I beg your pardon. I was thinking wont you sit down?
BLANCHE [looking suspiciously at him] Is anything the matter? [She sits down slowly near the writing table. He takes Cokane’s chair.]
TRENCH No. Oh no.
BLANCHE Papa has not been disagreeable, I hope.
TRENCH No: I have hardly spoken to him since I was with you. [He rises; takes up his chair; and plants