I wish you'd first attended to what you had to an' left your drinkin' till later. JOHN It's easy to say that! But if you're up to them kind o' tricks in your old age, mother, you can't blame me for bein' reel glad. MRS. JOHN All right. You go on to the registry now an' say that your child was borne by your wife in your dwellin' on the twenty-fifth o' May. JOHN Wasn't it on the twenty-sixth? 'Cause I said right along the twenty-sixth. Then he must ha' noticed that I wasn't quite sober. So he says: If that's a fac', all right; if not, you gotta come back. MRS. JOHN In that case you'd better leave it as it is. _The door is opened and SELMA KNOBBE pushes in a wretched perambulator which presents the saddest contrast to MRS. JOHN'S. Swaddled in pitiful rags a newly born child lies therein._ MRS. JOHN Oh, no, Selma, comin' into my room with that there sick child--that was all right before. But that can't be done no more. SELMA He just gasps with that cough o' his'n. Over at our place they smokes all the time. MRS. JOHN I told you, Selma, that you could come from time to time and get milk or bread. But while my little Adelbert is here an' c'n catch maybe consumption or somethin', you just leave that poor little thing at home with his fine mother. SELMA [_Tearfully._] Mother ain't been home at all yesterday or to-day. I can't get no sleep with this child. He just moans all night. I gotta get some sleep sometime! I'll jump outa the window first thing or I'll let the baby lie in the middle o' the street an' run away so no policeman can't never find me! JOHN [_Looks at the strange child._] Looks bad! Mother, why don't you try an' do somethin' for the little beggar? MRS. JOHN [_Pushing SELMA and the perambulator out determinedly._] March outa this room. That can't be done, Paul. When you got your own you can't be lookin' out for other people's brats. That Knobbe woman c'n look after her own affairs. It's different with Selma. [_To the girl._] You c'n come in when you want to. You c'n come in here after a while an' take a nap even. [_She locks the door._ JOHN You used to take a good deal o' interest in Knobbe's dirty little brats. MRS. JOHN You don' understan' that. I don' want our little Adelbert to be catchin' sore eyes or convulsions or somethin' like that. JOHN Maybe you're right. Only, don't go an' call him Adelbert, mother. That ain't a good thing to do, to call a child by the same name as one that was carried off, unbaptised, a week after it was born. Let that be, mother. I can't stand for that, mother, _A knocking is heard at the door. JOHN is about to open._ MRS. JOHN What's that? JOHN Well, somebody wants to get in! MRS. JOHN [_Hastily turning the key in the lock._] I ain't goin' to have everybody runnin' in on me now that I'm sick as this. [_She listens at the door and then calls out:_] I can't open! What d'you want? A WOMAN'S VOICE