Higgins [troubled] I don’t know what to do, Pickering.  There can be no question that as a matter of morals it’s a positive crime to give this chap a farthing.  And yet I feel a sort of rough justice in his claim.

Doolittle.  That’s it, Governor.  That’s all I say.  A father’s heart, as it were.

Pickering.  Well, I know the feeling; but really it seems hardly right—­

Doolittle.  Don’t say that, Governor.  Don’t look at it that way.  What am I, Governors both?  I ask you, what am I?  I’m one of the undeserving poor:  that’s what I am.  Think of what that means to a man.  It means that he’s up agen middle class morality all the time.  If there’s anything going, and I put in for a bit of it, it’s always the same story:  “You’re undeserving; so you can’t have it.”  But my needs is as great as the most deserving widow’s that ever got money out of six different charities in one week for the death of the same husband.  I don’t need less than a deserving man:  I need more.  I don’t eat less hearty than him; and I drink a lot more.  I want a bit of amusement, cause I’m a thinking man.  I want cheerfulness and a song and a band when I feel low.  Well, they charge me just the same for everything as they charge the deserving.  What is middle class morality?  Just an excuse for never giving me anything.  Therefore, I ask you, as two gentlemen, not to play that game on me.  I’m playing straight with you.  I ain’t pretending to be deserving.  I’m undeserving; and I mean to go on being undeserving.  I like it; and that’s the truth.  Will you take advantage of a man’s nature to do him out of the price of his own daughter what he’s brought up and fed and clothed by the sweat of his brow until she’s growed big enough to be interesting to you two gentlemen?  Is five pounds unreasonable?  I put it to you; and I leave it to you.

Higgins [rising, and going over to Pickering] Pickering:  if we were to take this man in hand for three months, he could choose between a seat in the Cabinet and a popular pulpit in Wales.

Pickering.  What do you say to that, Doolittle?

Doolittle.  Not me, Governor, thank you kindly.  I’ve heard all the preachers and all the prime ministers—­for I’m a thinking man and game for politics or religion or social reform same as all the other amusements—­and I tell you it’s a dog’s life anyway you look at it.  Undeserving poverty is my line.  Taking one station in society with another, it’s—­it’s—­well, it’s the only one that has any ginger in it, to my taste.

Higgins.  I suppose we must give him a fiver.

Pickering.  He’ll make a bad use of it, I’m afraid.

Doolittle.  Not me, Governor, so help me I won’t.  Don’t you be afraid that I’ll save it and spare it and live idle on it.  There won’t be a penny of it left by Monday:  I’ll have to go to work same as if I’d never had it.  It won’t pauperize me, you bet.  Just one good spree for myself and the missus, giving pleasure to ourselves and employment to others, and satisfaction to you to think it’s not been throwed away.  You couldn’t spend it better.