Jees, yuh’d tink he meant it! He sits down in the chair at LARRY’s left.

LARRY

Grinning.

I’ll be glad to pay up—tomorrow. And I know my fellow inmates will promise the same. They’ve all a touching credulity concerning tomorrows.

A half-drunken mockery in his eyes.

It’ll be a great day for them, tomorrow—the Feast of All Fools, with brass bands playing! Their ships will come in, loaded to the gunwales with cancelled regrets and promises fulfilled and clean slates and new leases!

ROCKY

Cynically.

Yeah, and a ton of hop!

LARRY

Leans toward him, a comical intensity in his low voice.

Don’t mock the faith! Have you no respect for religion, you unregenerate Wop? What’s it matter if the truth is that their favoring breeze has the stink of nickel whiskey on its breath, and their sea is a growler of lager and ale, and their ships are long since looted and scuttled and sunk on the bottom? To hell with the truth! As the history of the world proves, the truth has no bearing on anything. It’s irrelevant and immaterial, as the lawyers say. The lie of a pipe dream is what gives life to the whole misbegotten mad lot of us, drunk or sober. And that’s enough philosophic wisdom to give you for one drink of rot-gut.

ROCKY

Grins kiddingly.

De old Foolosopher, like Hickey calls yuh, ain’t yuh? I s’pose you don’t fall for no pipe dream?

LARRY

A bit stiffly.

I don’t, no. Mine are all dead and buried behind me. What’s before me is the comforting fact that death is a fine long sleep, and I’m damned tired, and it can’t come too soon for me.

ROCKY

Yeah, just hangin’ around hopin’ you’ll croak, ain’t yuh? Well, I’m bettin’ you’ll have a good long wait. Jees, somebody’ll have to take an axe to croak you!

LARRY

Grins.

Yes, it’s my bad luck to be cursed with an iron constitution that even

Harry’s booze can’t corrode.

ROCKY

De old anarchist wise guy dat knows all de answers! Dat’s you, huh?

LARRY

Frowns.

Forget the anarchist part of it. I’m through with the Movement long since. I saw men didn’t want to be saved from themselves, for that would mean they’d have to give up greed, and they’ll never pay that price for liberty. So I said to the world, God bless all here, and may the best man win and die of gluttony! And I took a seat in the grandstand of philosophical detachment to fall asleep observing the cannibals do their death dance.

He chuckles at his own fancy—reaches over and shakes Hugo’s shoulder. Ain’t I telling him the truth, Comrade Hugo?

ROCKY

Aw, fer Chris’ sake, don’t get dat bughouse bum started!

HUGO

Raises his head and peers at rocky blearily through his thick spectacles—in a guttural declamatory tone.

Capitalist swine! Bourgeois stool pigeons! Have the slaves no right to sleep even?

Then he grins atrocky and his manner changes to a giggling, wheedling playfulness, as though he were talking to a child. Hello, leedle Rocky! Leedle monkey-face! Vere is your leedle slave girls?

With an abrupt change to a bullying tone.

Don’t be a fool! Loan me a dollar! Damned bourgeois Wop! The great Malatesta is my good friend! Buy me a trink! He seems to run down, and is overcome by drowsiness. His head sinks to the table again and he is at once fast asleep.

ROCKY

He’s out again.

More exasperated than angry.

He’s lucky no one don’t take his cracks serious or he’d wake up every mornin’ in a hospital.

LARRY

Regarding hugo with pity.

No. No one takes him seriously. That’s his epitaph. Not even the comrades any more. If I’ve been through with the Movement long since, it’s been through with him, and, thanks to whiskey, he’s the only one doesn’t know it.

ROCKY

I’ve let him get by wid too much. He’s goin’ to pull dat slave-girl stuff on me once too often.

His manner changes to defensive argument.

Hell, yuh’d tink I wuz a pimp or somethin’. Everybody knows me knows I ain’t. A pimp don’t hold no job. I’m a bartender. Dem tarts, Margie and Poil, dey’re just a side line to pick up some extra dough. Strictly business, like dey was fighters and I was deir manager, see? I fix the cops fer dem so’s dey can hustle widout gettin’ pinched. Hell, dey’d be on de Island most of de time if it wasn’t fer me. And I don’t beat dem up like a pimp would. I treat dem fine. Dey like me. We’re pals, see? What if I do take deir dough? Dey’d on’y trow it away.