Scene 7 Summary

The stage directions tell us this scene takes place nearly a month later, after Yank's thirty-day prison sentence has been completed. The setting is a street in a rough part of town, and the interior of a building on that street, where a man works. A group of men – workers – hangs around both inside and outside the building. One man – the Secretary – sits at a table working on a ledger.

Yank appears, dressed roughly, (as he was when he confronted the upper classes in Scene Five). For the first time he appears to be moving and acting cautiously. After Yank knocks tentatively, then loudly, then even more loudly, the Secretary yells impatiently for him to come in. Yank does, looking around himself warily, as though he is expecting the place to be like some kind of secret society with coded greetings and handshakes...