_The rising curtain reveals Jim wearily uncorking a beer-bottle. Then he tilts it slowly and with infinite care. It proves to be empty. Faint and unpleasant laughter is heard off. This action and the accompanying far laughter are repeated continually throughout the play. Corked bottles are discovered lying behind rocks, and more descend constantly through the air, within reach of Jim. All prove to be empty._ _Jim uncorks a few bottles._ JIM (_weighing one carefully_) That's a full one. (_It is empty, like all_) [_Singing is heard off left._ BILL (_enters from left with a bullet-hole over his eye, singing_) Rule Britannia, Britannia rule the waves. (_Breaking off his song_) Why, 'ullo. 'Ere's a bottle of beer. (_Finds it empty; looking off and downward_) I'm getting a bit tired of those blooming great stars down there and this rocky ledge. I've been walking along under this wall ever since. Why, it must be twenty-four hours since that house-holder shot me. And he needn't have done it, either, _I_ wasn't going to hurt the bloke. I only wanted a bit of his silver stuff. It felt funny, that did. Hullo, a gate. Why, that's the Gate of Heaven. Well, well. So that's all right. (_Looks up and up for some time_) No. I can't climb _that_ wall. Why, it's got no top to it. Up and up it goes. (_Knocks at the door and waits_) JIM That isn't for the likes of us. BILL Why, hullo, there's another bloke. Why, somebody's been hanging him. Why, if it isn't old Jim! Jim! JIM (_wearily_) Hullo. BILL Why, Jim! 'Ow long 'ave you been 'ere? JIM I _am_ 'ere always. BILL Why, Jim, don't you remember me? Why, you taught Bill to pick locks years and years ago when he was a little boy, and had never learnt a trade and hadn't a penny in the world, and never would have had but for you, Jim. (_Jim stares vaguely_) I never forgot _you_, Jim. I broke into scores of houses. And then I took on big houses. Out in the country, you know, real big ones. I got rich, Jim, and respected by all who knew me. I was a citizen, Jim, one who dwelt in our midst. And of an evening, sitting over the fire, I used to say, "I am as clever as Jim." But I wasn't, Jim. I couldn't climb like you. And I couldn't walk like you on a creaky stair, when everything's quite still and there's a dog in the house and little rattly things left lying about, and a door that whines if you touch it, and someone ill upstairs that you didn't know of, who has nothing to do but to listen for _you_ 'cause she can't get to sleep. Don't you remember little Bill? JIM That would be somewhere else. BILL Yes, Jim, yes. Down on Earth. JIM But there isn't anywhere else. BILL I never forgot _you_, Jim. I'd be pattering away with my tongue, in Church, like all the rest, but all the time I'd be thinking of you in that little room at Putney and the man searching every corner of it for you with a revolver in one hand and a candle in the other, and you almost going round with him. JIM What is Putney? BILL