The Scene closes.
[THE END.]
JEMIMA BLOGGS
(A Play of Life as it is, in the Manchester manner of Mr. St. John Ervine.)
ACT I
Scene: A dingy parlour in a London Suburb. Two men in ill-fitting garments are sitting glumly, in comfortless chairs with shabby and rather soiled covers, on either side of a dismal mockery of a fire. The room is lit with incandescent gas, which shows a sickly yellow through a raw haze, offensively compounded of “London Particular” and the penetrating yellow fumes of cheap coal. The men are Joseph Bloggs (52), one of life’s many failures, and Henry Hooker (49), another of them. Their tired white faces are resting on their hands, and they are staring into the smoking grate. At last Hooker breaks the intolerable silence.
Hooker (gloomily): The fire’s smoking.
Bloggs: Yes. (He pokes it. The fire smoulders angrily. They cough. There is a pause. Hooker looks out of the window.)
Hooker (darkly): It’s raining.