It’s three years now.

LIZA

Couldn’t get a regular job, like?

JOHN

Well, I suppose I might have.  I suppose it’s my fault, miss.  But the heart was out of me.

LIZA

Dear me, now.

JOHN

Miss.

LIZA

Yes?

JOHN

You’ve a kind face . . .

LIZA

’Ave I?

JOHN

Yes.  Would you do me a kind turn?

LIZA

Well, I dunno.  I might, as yer so down on yer luck—­I don’t like to see a man like you are, I must say.

JOHN

Would you let me come into the big house and speak to the missus a moment?

LIZA

She’d row me awful if I did.  This house is very respectable.

JOHN

I feel, if you would, I feel, I feel my luck might change.

LIZA

But I don’t know what she’d say if I did.

JOHN

Miss, I must.

LIZA

I don’t know wot she’d say.

JOHN

I must come in, miss, I must.

LIZA

I don’t know what she’ll say.

JOHN

I must.  I can’t help myself.

LIZA

I don’t know what she’ll . . .

[John is in, door shuts.]

[Ali throws his head up and laughs, but quite silently.]

Curtain

SCENE 2

The drawing-room at the Acacias.

A moment later.

The scene is the same as in Act I, except that the sofa which was red is now green, and the photograph of Aunt Martha is replaced by that of a frowning old colonel.  The ages of the four children in the photographs are the same, but their sexes have changed.

[Mary reading.  Enter Liza.]

LIZA

There’s a gentleman to see you, mum, which is, properly speaking, not a gentleman at all, but ’e would come in, mum.