PIERROT (grimly)
Nothing as easy as that in this house. It’s hearts to mend here!
MAN (slinging off his pack)
Hearts to mend?—oho—I do that, too! Truth is (confidentially), it’s come to be my main business. For if you’d believe it, there’s more hearts to mend and souls to mend than pots and kettles to mend in this old world of ours. Fact, my dear sir, fact! (Sits down) And you can’t throw hearts away when they begin to show wear—now can you?—like you throw away an old pot? No siree! (Impressively) You got to mend ’em. And there’s tricks about mendin’ them, sir—tricks in all trades, say I. You can mend ’em so’s they’s worse’n they was in the beginning. And you can mend ’em so careful and so clever, you can’t tell they was ever mended at all. In fact, I’ve mended some of them so they was better that way than they was in the beginning. Seems curious, but it’s true. If there was a kettle now you wanted me to work on while I was talkin’, it’d keep me busy.
(Pierrot looks about; gets up and tosses him a kettle.)
PIERROT
There! Bang away at that!
(He sits down again. The Tins-to-mend man hammers away for awhile, Pierrot watching him gloomily.)
MAN
You see—pots and kettles is curious things. Y’ can’t just let ’em set there and be. They rust. That’s what they do. Y’ got t’ keep shinin’ ’em—keep polishin’ ’em up. And they like it, sir—oh, they do! They kinda get a hold on life. And when they hang in your kitchen all bright and happy like, they just seem to sing away like birds. Now you’re a singer, sir—why don’t you make a song about that?