Ned. Well done, youngster. (Turning to Mrs. Garside.) Mrs. Garside, you've a son to be proud of.
Mrs. G. Do you think I don't know it?
Peter (his demeanour unfeignedly modest). Comrades, Mr. Applegarth, it's nothing. I tried my best, but if I hadn't been so lucky in my papers——
Jones (interrupting). You've passed. The others were lucky, lucky in being men of leisure, sons of wealthy parents with nothing to do but study. Don't talk about your luck—(bitterly)—the luck of a wage slave. It's like winning a foot race with your ankles chained together.
O'Cal. It's the mighty brain of him that made him win.
Peter. Comrades, don't give me praise. It wasn't I. Something not myself got hold of me and urged me on. Injustice! Tyranny! The consciousness of class. The knowledge that in the eyes of my well-to-do competitors I was an inferior animal. My hands are rough with toil, the toil they batten on, and so they mocked at me for daring to compete with them—a man with a trade. They know now what a working man can do with his brain. They laughed on the wrong side of their fat faces, when the list came out to-night.
O'Cal. Bravo!
Jones (sceptically). Are they all such cads? I thought there were Socialists among them.
Peter. Middle-class, kid-glove Socialists, Fabians.
Ned (dryly). You're a fine talker, lad.