CHAMBERLAIN.  “Laid up” is a kind way of putting it, Collins.

JESSE COLLINGS.  Why, I needn’t even have said that; when here—­it’s sitting up I find you.

CHAMBERLAIN.  Sitting out.

JESSE COLLINGS.  Well, “sitting out,” if you like, for the time being.  But do you imagine that this phrase or that phrase (true for the moment) states the case, counts, is worth troubling about?

CHAMBERLAIN.  Do I imagine?  No, I don’t.  I don’t imagine anything.  I was never a man of imagination.

JESSE COLLINGS.  You are, when you say that!

CHAMBERLAIN.  No, Collings.  When I’ve done anything, it has been because I’ve had it in my hands to do....  My hands are empty now.  Some men manage to think with their heads only; others do it—­with their stomachs you might almost say.  I’ve never been able to think properly unless I had hold of things—­had them here in my hands....  Look at them, now! (With a slow, faint gesture he indicates their helplessness; then continues:) I was the man of business,... and now, I’m out of business; so I can’t think.

JESSE COLLINGS.  But that business, as you call it, Chamberlain, which you made so many of us understand for the first time—­I was a “Little Englander” myself, once—­that’s still going on.

CHAMBERLAIN (bitterly).  Yes, it’s a fine business!

JESSE COLLINGS (startled). Don’t you still believe in it?

CHAMBERLAIN.  As a business?  Yes.  But it’s going to fail all the same. 
There’s nobody to run it now.

JESSE COLLINGS.  We mean to run it, Chamberlain!  You’ll see!

CHAMBERLAIN.  I know you do, Collings.  You are loyalty itself.

JESSE COLLINGS.  There are others too.  I’m not the only one.

CHAMBERLAIN.  You are the best of them.

JESSE COLLINGS.  No, I won’t admit that.

CHAMBERLAIN.  Name?

JESSE COLLINGS.  The best?  Probably some one we don’t yet even know.  The best are still to come.  Time’s with us.

CHAMBERLAIN.  Is it?

JESSE COLLINGS.  Don’t you think so yourself?

CHAMBERLAIN.  Not now.  I did once.

JESSE COLLINGS.  You always said so.

CHAMBERLAIN.  I said it as long as I believed it:  till the stars in their courses turned against me.  That broke me, Collings.  If I could have gone on having faith in myself, I shouldn’t be—­as I am now.

JESSE COLLINGS.  But what—­what made you lose it?

CHAMBERLAIN.  Can’t you guess?

(Collings shakes his head, remains valiantly incredulous; and there is a pause.)

I saw somebody else—­whose cards weren’t so good—­playing with a better hand.  It was the hand beat me.  My head’s all right still, though it sleeps.  But I’ve lost my hand.  Look at it! (Again the gesture illustrative of defeat.) Threw it away.  You know who I mean?

JESSE COLLINGS (cautiously, rather reluctantly_).  I suppose I do.