JOE. [_After a look round, suddenly getting up, seizing a ricketty chair by the wall, breaking off the legs._] With this! Wonderful fine furniture they give you on the Hire System--so solid and substantial--as advertised. [_He breaks the flimsy thing up, as he speaks._] And to think we paid for this muck, in the days we were human beings--paid about three times its value! And to think of the poor devils, poor devils like us, who sweated their life-blood out to make it--and of the blood-sucking devils who sold it and got fat on it--and now back it goes to the devil it came from, and we can at least get warm for a minute. [_He crams the wood into the grate._] Got any paper, Mary? MARY. [_Taking an old newspaper from the trunk._] Here, Joe. JOE. That will help to build up a fire. [_He glances at it, then lays it carefully underneath the wood._ MARY _gets lamp from table._] The Daily Something or other--that tells the world what a happy people we are--how proud of belonging to an Empire on which the sun never sets. And I'd sell Gibraltar to-night for a sausage with mashed potatoes; and let Russia take India if some one would give me a clerkship at a pound a week.--There, in you go! A match, Mary? MARY. [_Standing above_ JOE, _handing him one._] Ok Joe, be careful--we've only two left! JOE. I'll be careful. Wait, though--I'll see whether there's a bit of tobacco still in my pipe. [_He fishes the pipe out of his pocket._] A policeman who warned me away from the kerb gave me some tobacco. "Mustn't beg," he said. "Got a pipe? Well, here's some tobacco." I believe he'd have given me money. But it was the first kind word I had heard all day, and it choked me.--There's just a bit left at the bottom. [_He bustles._] Now, first the fire. [_He puts the match to the paper--it kindles._] And then my pipe. [_The fire burns up; he throws himself in front of it._] Boo-o-oh, I'm sizzling.... I got so wet that I felt the water running into my lungs--my feet didn't seem to belong to me--and as for my head and nose! [_Yawns._] Well, smoke's good--by the powers, I'm getting warm--come closer to it, Mary. It's a little after midnight now--and I left home, this fine, luxurious British home, just as soon as it was light. And I've tramped the streets all day. Net result, a policeman gave me a pipeful of tobacco, I lunched off a bit of bread that I saw floating down the gutter--and I dined off the kitchen smell of the Café Royal. That's my day. MARY. [_Stroking his hand._] Poor boy, poor boy!