Peggy. Oh, Will, I can’t imagine you!  I can’t bring myself to believe that you were ever rich and free!

Will. But I was, Peggy!  And this will bring it all back to you.  When you read this manuscript you’ll see me when I didn’t know what trouble meant-I’d never had to make an effort in my life, I couldn’t imagine what it would be to fail.  Oh, what a wonderful time it was, Peggy!  It’s been wonderful just to recall it here.  I’ve pictured my twenty-first birthday—­I had a dinner party in the big drawing-room of Dad’s home! (As Will goes on the Real-play fades, and the Play-play comes slowly into sight.) There’s Jessie, my sister, and there’s my cousin, Bob.  He’s a college professor who went out into the world as a hobo in order to see life for himself.  You see it’s all my story—­my own story!  Only my name’s to be Jack, you know!  Here’s the manuscript!  Read it!

(Full light on the Play-play.  The Real-play figures are in darkness, visible only in silhouette.  Will exchanges places with a substitute concealed on upstage side of the desk, and then slips below the level of the desk and exit Left, to make quick change for entrance into Play-play in the role of Jack.)

Jessie. But Bob—­

Bob. Well, Jessie?

Jessie. You’re so hard on people, Bob!

Bob. Not at all!  It’s life that’s hard, and you don’t know it.  Neither does Jack!

Jessie. Why do you want him to know it?

Bob. I want him to do his share to change it—­instead of idling his life away.

Jessie. He’s going to college, isn’t he?

Bob (laughs). A lot of good that’s doing!

Jessie. Don’t you believe in going to college?

Bob. Not the way Jack’s doing it.  It’s all play to him, and I want him to work.  Just as I was trying to tell him a while ago—­

Jessie. You’re always nagging at him, Bob.

Bob. I want to teach him something.  Something about the reality of life.

Jack (enters Play-play left in evening dress). Good heavens!  You two still arguing?

Bob. Yes, Jack—­still arguing!

Jack. Can’t you cut it out for one evening?  I’m not in your class in college.

Bob. If you were, Jack, you’d learn something real about the world you live in.

Jack. Oh, cut it out, Bob!  You give me a pain!  Just because you once put on hobo clothes and went out and knocked about with bums for a year, you think you’ve a call to go around making yourself a bore to every one you know!

Bob. Well, Jack, some things I saw made an impression on me and I can’t forget them.  When I hear my glib young cousin who sits and surveys life from the shelter of his father’s income—­when I hear him making utterly silly assertions——­

Jack (angrily). What, for example?