MRS HUSHABYE. Alfred, you mustn't tell naughty stories.
MANGAN. I'm not telling you stories. I'm telling you the raw truth.
LADY UTTERWORD. Then what do you live on, Mr Mangan?
MANGAN. Travelling expenses. And a trifle of commission.
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. What more have any of us but travelling expenses for our life's journey?
MRS HUSHABYE. But you have factories and capital and things?
MANGAN. People think I have. People think I'm an industrial Napoleon. That's why Miss Ellie wants to marry me. But I tell you I have nothing.
ELLIE. Do you mean that the factories are like Marcus's tigers? That they don't exist?
MANGAN. They exist all right enough. But they're not mine. They belong to syndicates and shareholders and all sorts of lazy good-for-nothing capitalists. I get money from such people to start the factories. I find people like Miss Dunn's father to work them, and keep a tight hand so as to make them pay. Of course I make them keep me going pretty well; but it's a dog's life; and I don't own anything.
MRS HUSHABYE. Alfred, Alfred, you are making a poor mouth of it to get out of marrying Ellie.