VICKEY. Father! You take his side against your flesh and blood.
HOBSON. That doesn't come too well from you, my girl. Neither of you would leave your homes to come to care for me. You're not for me, so you're against me.
ALICE. We're not against you, father. We want to stay and see that Will deals fairly by you.
HOBSON. Oh, I'm not capable of looking after myself, amn't I? I've to be protected by you girls lest I'm overreached, and overreached by whom? By Willie Mossop! I may be ailing, but I've fight enough left in me for a dozen such as him, and if you're thinking that the manhood's gone from me, you can go and think it somewhere else than in my house.
VICKEY. But father—dear father—
HOBSON. I'm not so dear to you if you'd to think twice about coming here to do for me, let alone jibbing at it the way you did. A proper daughter would have jumped—aye, skipped like a calf by the cedars of Lebanon—at the thought of being helpful to her father.
ALICE. Did Maggie skip?
HOBSON. She's a bit ancient for skipping exercise, is Maggie; but she's coming round to reconcilement with the thought of living here, and that is more than you are doing, Alice, isn't it? Eh? Are you willing to come?
ALICE (sullenly). No.
HOBSON. Or you, Vickey?