KEN.  I got to go in.  Got to find Ted.  I got to ’pologize to Ted. [MARTIN, seeing BISHOP, lets go of KEN who nearly falls, KEN does not see his father.] I got to shake hands with him and say, Ted, ol’ boy, you’re right.  We’re in the same boat.  We’re brothers under the skin.  We are both kept men.

BISHOP.  My son!

KEN. [Turns slowly and sees his father.] Hi, dad! [Gestures to
LAURA.] Meet the wife.  She got the job.  You paid for it. [Silence. 
Gestures to MARTIN.] Meet Martin.  He’s a god-damned Communist.  But
I like him.

BISHOP.  My son, you have been drinking.

KEN.  Drinking? [Laughs—­to MARTIN.] He thinks I have been drinking. [To TIPPY.] Hi!  Good old Tippy.  Washes dogs.—­Kept dogs.  Kept women.  Kept men.

TIPPY. [Taking him by the arm.] Come on, Ken.  Come out in the kitchen and have some coffee.

KEN.  I don’t want coffee.  Makes you ’member what you got drunk to forget.

TIPPY.  All right, then.  I’ll give you some more whiskey.

BISHOP. [In horror.] I forbid.  Please, no more liquor.

KEN.  That’s right.  No more liquor.  Might forget too much.

TIPPY.  Then come in and go to sleep and forget everything.

KEN. [Shaking him off.] I don’t want to forget.  I want to explain. [Looking around at each.] Dad—­Laura—–­Tippy—­Martin.  Whole god-damn Class of ’29.  Class of ’29....  Six years.  Hi, Martin, member the speeches?  ’Member the Bac-ca-laurit address? [Struts and gestures.] Young men of the Class of ’29. [Gestures left.] This is your god-damn old alma mater. [Gestures right.] And out there’s the goddamn old world. [Gestures left.] In there you studied four years like sons-o’-guns, stuffing your empty heads full of useless knowledge. [Gestures right.] So you could go out there and get a job.  And make money.  And get a house.  And a car.  And a woman to sleep with.  And have a baby, and vote the Republican ticket....  And so what happens?  Depressions and Democrats.  And Hoover—­’member Hoover?—­Hoover had to go back to Leland Stanford libr’y to read a book to tell him why there’s jobs for everybody in Russia. [He stops, looks at his father.’] ’Scuse me.  Hoover’s all wet. [To MARTIN, belligerently.’] My father’s a bishop, see?  Russia’s hell on bishops.  This is the country for bishops.  You are out of luck, Martin.  Your father made a mistake being a farmer.  He should have been a bishop.  Nice jobs, lots of money.  Buys a job for his son so he can get married and have a wife and a home and a baby and not be a Red.  You think I’m a Red?  Hell, no.  I’m a hundred per cent American.  I’m an individualist.  Americans are individualists.  Each man got his own wife ‘n’ his own bed.  A Russian’s a collectivist.  Got everybody’s wife in bed.

BISHOP.  Kenneth, my son!