ROBERT.  Thank you, miss.

MARY.  Now, don’t you think, if you were really to wish very hard, it would make things better for you?

ROBERT.  I don’t know what you mean, miss.

MARY.  Well, it’s like this:  if you only wish very very hard, everything comes true.

ROBERT.  Wot I want, ain’t no use wishing for!

MARY.  It doesn’t matter what it is!  Anything you like!  It will all happen!

ROBERT.  Blimey, wot’s the good o’ talkin’?

MARY.  Oh, wouldn’t you like to help to spin the fairy-tale?

ROBERT [roughly], I don’t believe in no fairy-tales!

MARY.  I do!  I don’t believe there’s anything else in the world, if we only knew!  And that’s why I’m wishing!  I’m wishing now!  I’m wishing hard!

ROBERT [passionately].  So am I, Gawd ’elp me!  But it’s no use!

MARY.  It is!  It is!  What are you wishing for?

ROBERT.  Never you mind!  Summat as impossible as—­fairy-tales!

MARY.  So’s mine!  That’s what it has to be!  Mine’s the most impossible thing in the world!

ROBERT.  Not more than mine!

MARY.  What’s yours?

ROBERT.  What’s yours?

MARY. I want my father!

ROBERT.  I WANT MY LITTLE KID!

[There is a second’s pause.]

MARY.  Your—­what? . . .

ROBERT [brokenly].  My—­daughter.

MARY.  Oh! . . .

[She goes towards him:  they face each other.]

[Softly.] Is she dead?

[He stands looking at her.]

Is she?

[He turns away from her.]

ROBERT.  Fur as I am concerned—­yus.

MARY.  What do you mean? Isn’t she dead?

ROBERT.  She’s alive, right enough.

MARY.  Perhaps—­perhaps she ran away? . . .

ROBERT.  She got took.

MARY.  How do you mean—­gypsies?

ROBERT.  I give ’er up.  ’Ad to.

MARY.  Why?

ROBERT.  Look at me! . . .

That—­an’ the drink, an’ the low wages, an’ my ole woman dyin’!  That’s why I give ’er up.

MARY.  Where is she now?

ROBERT.  Never you mind.  She’s bein’ looked arfter.

MARY.  By whom?

ROBERT.  By people as I’ve allus ’ated like poison!

MARY.  Why, aren’t they kind to her?

ROBERT.  Yus:  they’ve made ’er summat, as I couldn’t ‘a’ done.

MARY.  Then why do you hate them ?

ROBERT.  I don’t any longer.  I ’ates myself, I ’ates the world I live in, I ‘ates the bloomin’ muck ’ole I’ve landed into!

MARY.  Your wife’s dead, you say?

ROBERT.  Yus.

MARY.  What would she think about it all?

ROBERT [hollowly, without variation].  I don’t know:  I don’t know: 
I don’t know.

[MARY sits down beside him.]