O, do they still hold out? If they should be for spiting you to the last! You'ld best keep on at them: think out a list Of frantic things for them to do, when air Is scorching smother and the sin they did Frightens their hearts. You'll shout them into fear, I undertake, if you find breath enough. Huff: You have the breath. What's all your pester for? You leave me be. Vine: Why, you're to do for me What I can't do myself.--And yet it's hard To make out where Shale hurt you. What's the sum Of all he did to you? Got you quit of marriage Without the upset of a funeral. Huff: Why need you blurt your rambling mind at me? Let me bide quiet in my thought awhile, And it's a little while we have for thought. Merrick: I know your thought. Paddling round and around, Like a squirrel working in a spinning cage With his neck stretcht to have his chin poke up, And silly feet busy and always going; Paddling round the story of your good life, Your small good life, and how the decent men Have jeered at your wry antic. Huff: My good life! And what good has my goodness been to me? You show me that! Somebody show me that! A caterpillar munching a cabbage-heart, Always drudging further and further from The sounds and lights of the world, never abroad Nor flying free in warmth and air sweet-smelling: A crawling caterpillar, eating his life In a deaf dark--that's my gain of goodness! And it's too late to hatch out now!-- I can but fancy what I might have been; I scarce know how to sin!--But I believe A long while back I did come near to it. Merrick: Well done!--O but I should have guesst all this! Huff: I was in Droitwich; and the sight of the place Is where they cook the brine: a long dark shed, Hot as an oven, full of a grey steam And ruddy light that leaks out of the furnace; And stirring the troughs, ladling the brine that boils As thick as treacle, a double standing row, Women--boldly talking in wicked jokes All day long. I went to see 'em. It was A wonderful rousing sight. Not one of them Was really wearing clothes: half of a sack Pinned in an apron was enough for most, And here and there might be a petticoat; But nothing in the way of bodices.-- O, they knew words to shame a carter's face! Merrick: This is the thought you would be quiet in! Huff: