COLIN: Well--to be quite frank with you--I think all this talk about the business being a waste of your life is rather stupid. The world’s in a devil of a mess; we’re all living on a volcano; but, as far as one can be sure of anything, your business is sure; you get a very good screw; you get all your evenings to yourself; in a world where ninety per cent of people are continually anxious about their livelihood, your comfort and comparative wealth are assured. You’re a damned lucky man, John, and you’ve got no right to go about grousing about yourself. JOHN: Can I be quite frank answering that? COLIN: Of course. JOHN: There’s one big difference between us. COLIN: Yes? JOHN: It’s difficult to say. COLIN: Don’t be a fool. JOHN: You never went into the trenches. [_This causes a sudden stoppage in the dialogue, momentary but the severance is complete; it doesn’t go on in quite the same tone afterwards._ COLIN: No. I agree to that difference--very humbly; but I don’t see what difference that makes about the business. JOHN: It makes the hell of a difference to _me_ ... it’s hateful to talk about it ... but there it is. COLIN (_gently_): I’m interested. JOHN (_responding_): There were several of us, Colin, who used to talk about the whole thing out there; I mean, why the whole thing had happened, and what we were going to do about it when it was over ... a good many of us to start with ... we got fewer; the lucky ones were killed outright. Jack Bardsley got half his face blown away and _can’t_ talk now; Peter Glen’s blind; Chris--Chris was engaged to a most attractive girl ... he was mad about her ... used to talk to her at night ... I heard him once, when he thought I was asleep--he got a bit of shrapnel in his stomach and thighs, and had to be cut away. He never married. Little Westerby’s mad.... I’m the only one left.... Sometimes I think I’ve got no right to be alive at all, Colin--just a fluke ... there are millions of my age, skull and bone and rotting flesh just under the earth over there.... [_COLIN has no answer ... the short silence is tense ... then he goes on more calmly._ If the war hadn’t happened I should have married Frankie; and gone into the business, and settled down to it ... but I _can’t_ just go on using my life up aimlessly--or what seems to me aimlessly, as if nothing had happened ... to hear them talk--father and his lot, you’d think nothing had happened--_my God_! It’s hard to talk about it; it’s hard to feel a thing very deeply, and talk about it, and not sound priggish; but I must talk to somebody; you’re the only one. COLIN: Thank you. JOHN: You’re an idealist, really. You wrote “A Pair of Pyjamas,” and you’ve made the devil of a lot of money, but you know the real worth of things; that’s why you get angry with me when I still care about ideals; it makes you uncomfortable; and you hate being uncomfortable, because you’ve made too much money.