HOBSON (banging table). Ruin, Maggie, that's what it is! Ruin and bankruptcy. Am I vicar's warden at St. Philip's or am I not? Am I Hobson of Hobson's Boot Shop on Chapel Street, Salford? Am I a respectable ratepayer and the father of a family or—
MAGGIE (who has been reading over WILL'S shoulder). It's an action for damages for trespass, I see.
HOBSON. It's a stab in the back, it's an unfair, un-English, cowardly way of taking a mean advantage of a casual accident.
MAGGIE. Did you trespass?
HOBSON. Maggie, I say it solemnly, it is all your fault. I had an accident. I don't deny it. I'd been in the "Moonraker's" and I'd stayed too long. And why? Why did I stay too long? To try to forget that I'd a thankless child, to erase from the tablets of memory the recollection of your conduct. That was the cause of it. And the result, the blasting, withering result? I fell into that cellar. I slept in that cellar and I awoke to this catastrophe. Lawyers... law-costs... publicity... ruin.
MAGGIE (moving round table to C.). I'm still asking you. Was it an accident? Or did you trespass?
HOBSON. It's an accident. As plain as Salford Town Hall it's an accident, but they that live by law have twisted ways of putting things that make white show as black. I'm in their grip at last. I've kept away from lawyers all my life, I've hated lawyers, and they've got their chance to make me bleed for it. I've dodged them, and they've caught me in the end. They'll squeeze me dry for it.
WILLIE. My word, and that's summat like a squeeze and all.
(HOBSON stares at him.)
MAGGIE. I can see it's serious. I shouldn't wonder if you didn't lose some trade from this.