JAMES. It is.
MAGGIE [not so much out of the goodness of her heart as to patronise the Shands]. It seems to me it’s a case for us all to go to our beds and leave the young man to study; but not on that chair. [And she wheels the chair away from him.]
JOHN. Thank you, Miss Maggie, but I couldn’t be beholden to you.
JAMES. My opinion is that he’s nobody, so out with him.
JOHN. Yes, out with me. And you’ll be cheered to hear I’m likely to be a nobody for a long time to come.
DAVID [who had been beginning to respect him]. Are you a poor scholar?
JOHN. On the contrary, I’m a brilliant scholar.
DAVID. It’s siller, then?
JOHN [glorified by experiences he has shared with many a gallant soul]. My first year at college I lived on a barrel of potatoes, and we had just a sofa-bed between two of us; when the one lay down the other had to get up. Do you think it was hardship? It was sublime. But this year I can’t afford it. I’ll have to stay on here, collecting the tickets of the illiterate, such as you, when I might be with Romulus and Remus among the stars.
JAMES [summing up]. Havers.