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Read Ebook: Hobson's Choice: A Lancashire Comedy in Four Acts by Brighouse Harold
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Ebook has 1391 lines and 22804 words, and 28 pages
MAGGIE. It's not wasted. Those boots will last. Good morning, Mr. Prosser.
ALBERT. Good morning.
ALICE. Maggie, we know you're a pushing sales-woman, but--
MAGGIE . It'll teach him to keep out of here a bit. He's too much time on his hands.
ALICE. You know why he comes.
MAGGIE. I know it's time he paid a rent for coming. A pair of laces a day's not half enough. Coming here to make sheep's eyes at you. I'm sick of the sight of him.
ALICE. It's all very well for an old maid like you to talk, but if father won't have us go courting, where else can Albert meet me except here when father's out?
MAGGIE. If he wants to marry you why doesn't he do it?
ALICE. Courting must come first.
MAGGIE. It needn't. . See that slipper with a fancy buckle on to make it pretty? Courting's like that, my lass. All glitter and no use to nobody.
HOBSON. Maggie, I'm just going out for a quarter of an hour.
MAGGIE. Yes, father. Don't be late for dinner. There's liver.
HOBSON. It's an hour off dinner-time.
MAGGIE. So that, if you stay more than an hour in the Moonraker's Inn, you'll be late for it.
HOBSON. "Moonraker's?" Who said--?
VICKEY. If your dinner's ruined, it'll be your own fault.
HOBSON. Well, I'll be eternally--
ALICE. Don't swear, father.
HOBSON . No. I'll sit down instead. Listen to me, you three. I've come to conclusions about you. And I won't have it. Do you hear that? Interfering with my goings out and comings in. The idea! I've a mind to take measures with the lot of you.
MAGGIE. I expect Mr. Heeler's waiting for you in "Moonraker's," father.
HOBSON. He can go on waiting. At present, I'm addressing a few remarks to the rebellious females of this house, and what I say will be listened to and heeded. I've noticed it coming on ever since your mother died. There's been a gradual increase of uppishness towards me.
VICKEY. Father, you'd have more time to talk after we've closed to-night.
HOBSON. I'm talking now, and you're listening. Providence has decreed that you should lack a mother's hand at the time when single girls grow bumptious and must have somebody to rule. But I'll tell you this, you'll none rule me.
VICKEY. I'm sure I'm not bumptious, father.
HOBSON. Yes, you are. You're pretty, but you're bumptious, and I hate bumptiousness like I hate a lawyer.
ALICE. If we take trouble to feed you it's not bumptious to ask you not to be late for your food.
VICKEY. Give and take, father.
HOBSON. I give and you take, and it's going to end.
MAGGIE. How much a week do you give us?
HOBSON. That's neither here nor there. At moment I'm on uppishness, and I'm warning you your conduct towards your parent's got to change. But that's not all. That's private conduct, and now I pass to broader aspects and I speak of public conduct. I've looked upon my household as they go about the streets, and I've been disgusted. The fair name and fame of Hobson have been outraged by members of Hobson's family, and uppishness has done it.
VICKEY. I don't know what you're talking about.
HOBSON. Vickey, you're pretty, but you can lie like a gas-meter. Who had new dresses on last week?
ALICE. I suppose you mean Vickey and me!
HOBSON. I do.
VICKEY. We shall dress as we like, father, and you can save your breath.
HOBSON. I'm not stopping in from my business appointment for the purpose of saving my breath.
VICKEY. You like to see me in nice clothes.
HOBSON. I do. I like to see my daughters nice. That's why I pay Mr. Tudsbury, the draper, 10 pounds a year a head to dress you proper. It pleases the eye and it's good for trade. But, I'll tell you, if some women could see themselves as men see them, they'd have a shock, and I'll have words with Tudsbury an' all, for letting you dress up like guys. I saw you and Alice out of the "Moonraker's" parlour on Thursday night and my friend Sam Minns--
ALICE. A publican.
HOBSON. Aye, a publican. As honest a man as God Almighty ever set behind a bar, my ladies. My friend, Sam Minns, asked me who you were. And well he might. You were going down Chapel Street with a hump added to nature behind you.
VICKEY . Father!
HOBSON. The hump was wagging, and you put your feet on pavement as if you'd got chilblains--aye, stiff neck above and weak knees below. It's immodest!
ALICE. It is not immodest, father. It's the fashion to wear bustles.
HOBSON. Then to hell with the fashion.
MAGGIE. Father, you are not in the "Moonraker's" now.
VICKEY. You should open your eyes to what other ladies wear.
VICKEY. Do you want us to dress like mill girls?
HOBSON. No. Nor like French Madams, neither. It's un-English, I say.
ALICE. We shall continue to dress fashionably, father.
HOBSON. Then I've a choice for you two. Vickey, you I'm talking to, and Alice. You'll become sane if you're going on living here. You'll control this uppishness that's growing on you. And if you don't, you'll get out of this, and exercise your gifts on some one else than me. You don't know when you're well off. But you'll learn it when I'm done with you. I'll choose a pair of husbands for you, my girls. That's what I'll do.
ALICE. Can't we choose husbands for ourselves?
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