And sober, honest, dutiful sons they've proved:
While our two bastards, Ruth and ...

JUDITH:
Never been
A better daughter!

BELL:
Then, what would you have?
You've had her to yourself, without the worrit
Of a man to wear your soul out, all these years.
If I'd been married, before a week was through,
I'd have picked my husband's pocket, to buy rats' bane:
Envying the spiders who can gobble up
Husbands they've no more use for between meals.
But I wasn't born to kick my heels in air
For a plaguey husband: and if I'm to dangle,
'Twon't be for that, but something worth putting myself
Out of the way for. You say I'll scorn you, woman.
Who 'm I, to scorn? You're not my sort: but I ken
Too much of life for easy scorn: I've learnt
The lessons of the road.

JUDITH:
I've known the road, too;
And learned its bitter ...

BELL:
You didn't relish it?
It's meat to me; but then, I like mixed pickles--
Life, with an edge, and a free hand with the pepper.
You can't make a good hotchpotch with only 'taties:
And a good hotchpotch I'm fairly famished for:
I've starved on the lean fare of Krindlesyke:
My mouth is watering for the old savoury mess--
Life, piping hot: for I'm no man-in-the-moon,
To sup off cold peaseporridge: and it's the wash
Of bitters over the tongue gives bite to the pepper:
But you've no taste for bitters, or devilled collops--
Roast scrag on Sunday: cold mutton and boiled 'taties
The rest of the week, is the most you'd ask of life--
Nay, a cup of milky tea by a white hearth--
And you're in heaven!

JUDITH:
You're not far out.

BELL:
I take
Mine, laced with rum, by a camp-fire under the stars;
And not too dainty to mind the smatch of smoke.

JUDITH:
Tastes differ.

BELL:
Yet, for all my appetite,
At Krindlesyke, I'm a ewe overhead in a drift
That's cropped the grass round its feet, and mumbles its wool
For nourishment: and that's what you call life!
You're you: I'm I. It takes all turns for a circus:
And it's just the change and chances of the ring
Make the old game worth the candle: variety
At all costs: hurly-burly, razzle-dazzle--
Life, cowping creels through endless flaming hoops,
A breakneck business, ending with a crash,
If only in the big drum. The devil's to pay
For what we have, or haven't; and I believe
I