MAGGIE. I think I'll have to. (She rises.)
HOBSON. Whatever's the hurry for?
WILLIE. It may be news to you—(moving a little R.),—but I've a business round in Oldfield Road and I'm neglecting it with wasting my time here.
HOBSON. Wasting time? Maggie, what's the matter with Will? I've made him a proposal.
MAGGIE. He's a shop of his own to see to, father.
HOBSON. (incredulous). A man who's offered a job at Hobson's doesn't want to worry with a shop of his own in a wretched cellar in Oldfield Road.
WILLIE. Shall I tell him, Maggie, or shall we go?
HOBSON. Go! I don't want to keep a man who—(Rises.)
MAGGIE. If he goes, I go with him, father. You'd better speak out, Will.
WILLIE. All right, I will. We've been a year in yon wretched cellar and do you know what we've done? We've paid off Mrs. Hepworth what she lent us for our start and made a bit o' brass on top o' that. We've got your high-class trade away from you. That shop's a cellar, and as you say, it's wretched, but they come to us in it, and they don't come to you. Your trade's gone down till all you sell is clogs. You've got no trade, and me and Maggie's got it all and now you're on your bended knees to her to come and live with you, and all you think to offer me is my old job at eighteen shillings a week. Me that's the owner of a business that is starving yours to death.