turns it right way up_.)

MAGGIE. What is it, Will?

HOBSON (_banging table_). Ruin, Maggie, that's what it is!
Ruin and bankruptcy. Am I vicar's warden at St. Philip's or am I
not? Am I Hobson of Hobson's Boot Shop on Chapel Street, Salford?
Am I a respectable ratepayer and the father of a family or--

MAGGIE (_who has been reading over_ WILL'S _shoulder_).
It's an action for damages for trespass, I see.

HOBSON. It's a stab in the back, it's an unfair, un-English,
cowardly way of taking a mean advantage of a casual accident.

MAGGIE. Did you trespass?

HOBSON. Maggie, I say it solemnly, it is all your fault. I had an
accident. I don't deny it. I'd been in the "Moonraker's" and I'd
stayed too long. And why? Why did I stay too long? To try to
forget that I'd a thankless child, to erase from the tablets of
memory the recollection of your conduct. That was the cause of
it. And the result, the blasting, withering result? I fell into
that cellar. I slept in that cellar and I awoke to this
catastrophe. Lawyers... law-costs... publicity... ruin.

MAGGIE (_moving round table to_ C.). I'm still asking you.
Was it an accident? Or did you trespass?

HOBSON. It's an accident. As plain as Salford Town Hall it's an