MINNIE
Well, you can steal the eggs out of the fowl-house.
JACK
I'm not.
MINNIE
Then I shan't play with you. (Jack takes off his bowler hat and flings it on the sofa; tears come in Minnie's eyes) Now I'm not friends. (She surveys him ruefully; after a few moments of silence she clambers down and goes to her mother) Mam, he won't play with me.
MRS. HOLROYD (crossly)
Why don't you play with her? If you begin bothering, you must go to bed.
JACK
Well, I don't want to play.
MRS. HOLROYD
Then you must go to bed.
JACK
I don't want to.
MRS. HOLROYD
Then what do you want, I should like to know?
MINNIE
I wish my father'd come.
JACK
I do.
MRS. HOLROYD
I suppose he thinks he's paying me out. This is the third time this week he's slunk past the door and gone down to Old Brinsley instead of coming in to his dinner. He'll be as drunk as a lord when he does come.
[The children look at her plaintively.
