TED. [After slight pause.] I suppose it's always hard to understand the other fellow's troubles. They seem so small compared with your own.
TIPPY. Circumstances do not excuse crimes, but they do explain them. [Pause.] We've all taken plenty. But I'll say this, old man. If I'm the first member of the Class of '29 to check in at the big Court House I'll look up the judge and I'll say to him, "See here, God, when Ted Brooks arrives, don't judge him till you've looked up his full record. The cards were stacked against that guy from the start! The rest of us merely needed jobs, but he needed ..." [Pauses, not knowing how to finish.]
TED. Thanks, Tippy.
TIPPY. I'll be damned if I know what you do need!
TED. Guts. Guts is what I need.--My health's good enough for physical labor, but nobody wants me to dig ditches.
TIPPY. Did you ever see a steam shovel at work? I don't say you're any use to the world or have any right to live in it. But making a hundred men like you substitute for a steam shovel is plain damn silly. It's an insult to the steam shovel.
TED. [With deep, quiet desperation which grows more and more intense through the following scenes.] What should I do? What was it intended for me to do?
TIPPY. Live like an aristocrat.
TED. As Martin would say--on the backs of the workers.
TIPPY. The workers don't seem to mind. They didn't throw you off.