t just keep myself to myself. And he's all
right with the children too, except when he's not himself.

WHEELER. You mean when he's drunk, the beauty.

MRS. JONES. Yes. [Without change of voice] There's the young
gentleman asleep on the sofa.

[They both look silently at Jack.]

MRS. JONES. [At last, in her soft voice.] He does n't look quite
himself.

WHEELER. He's a young limb, that's what he is. It 's my belief he
was tipsy last night, like your husband. It 's another kind of
bein' out of work that sets him to drink. I 'll go and tell Marlow.
This is his job.

[She goes.]

[Mrs. Jones, upon her knees, begins a gentle sweeping.]

JACK. [Waking.] Who's there? What is it?

MRS. JONES. It's me, sir, Mrs. Jones.

JACK. [Sitting up and looking round.] Where is it--what--what time
is it?

MRS. JONES. It's getting on for nine o'clock, sir.

JACK. For nine! Why--what! [Rising, and loosening his tongue;
putting hands to his head, and staring hard at Mrs. Jones.] Look
here, you, Mrs.----Mrs. Jones--don't you say you caught me asleep
here.

MRS. JONES. No, sir, of course I won't sir.

JACK. It's quite an accident; I don't know how it happened. I must
have forgotten to go to bed. It's a queer thing. I 've got a most
beastly headache. Mind you don't say anything, Mrs. Jones.

[Goes out and passes MARLOW in the doorway. MARLOW is young
and quiet; he is cleanshaven, and his hair is brushed high from
his forehead in a coxcomb. Incidentally a butler, he is first
a man. He looks at MRS. JONES, and smiles a private smile.]

MARLOW. Not the first time, and won't be the last. Looked a bit
dicky, eh, Mrs. Jones?

MRS. JONES. He did n't look quite himself. Of course I did n't
take notice.

MARLOW. You're used to them. How's your old man?

MRS. JONES. [Softly as throughout.] Well, he was very bad last
night; he did n't seem to know what he was about. He was very late,
and he was most abusive. But now, of course, he's asleep.

MARLOW. That's his way of finding a job, eh?

MRS. JONES. As a rule, Mr. Marlow, he goes out early every morning
looking for work, and sometimes he comes in fit to drop--and of
course I can't say he does n't try to get it, because he does.
Trade's very bad. [She stands quite still, her fan and brush before
her, at the beginning and the end of long vistas of experience,
traversing them with her impersonal eye.] But