Merry Andrew:
I've not missed
A hoop since I was six. I'm forty-two.
This is the first time that my body's failed me:
But 'twill not be the last. And ...
Gentleman John:
Such is life!
You're going to say. You see I've got it pat,
Your jaded wheeze. Lord, what a wit I'ld make
If I'd a set grin painted on my face.
And such is life, I'ld say a hundred times,
And each time set the world aroar afresh
At my original humour. Missed a hoop!
Why, man alive, you've naught to grumble at.
I've boggled every hoop since I was six.
I'm fifty-five; and I've run round a ring
Would make this potty circus seem a pinhole.
I wasn't born to sawdust. I'd the world
For circus ...
Merry Andrew:
It's no time for crowing now.
I know a gentleman, and take on trust
The silver spoon and all. My teeth were cut
Upon a horseshoe: and I wasn't born
To purple and fine linen — but to sawdust,
To sawdust, as you say — brought up on sawdust.
I've had to make my daily bread of sawdust:
Ay, and my children's, — children's, that's the rub,
As Shakespeare says ...
Gentleman John:
Ah, there you go again!
What a rare wit to set the ring aroar —
As Shakespeare says! Crowing? A gentleman?
Man, didn't you say you'd never missed a hoop?
It's only gentlemen who miss no hoops,
Clean livers, easy lords of life who take
Each obstacle at a leap, who never fail.
You are the gentleman.
Merry Andrew:
Now don't you try
Being funny at my expense; or you'll soon find
I'm not quite done for yet — not quite snuffed out.
There's still a spark of life. You may have words:
But I've a fist will be a match for them.
Words slaver feebly from a broken jaw.
I've always lived straight, as a man must do
In my profession, if he'ld keep in fettle:
But I'm no gentleman, for I fail to see
There's any sport in baiting a poor man
Because he's losing grip at forty-two,
And sees his livelihood slipping from his grasp —
Ay, and his children's bread.