Hobson

“ TUBBY. Will you sit on the arm-chair by the fire or at the table?
HOBSON. The table? Breakfast? Bacon? Bacon, and I'm like this.
(JIM assists him to arm-chair.)
JIM. When a man's like this he wants a woman about the house, Henry.
HOBSON (sitting) . I'll want then.
TUBBY. Shall I go for Miss Maggie, sir?—Mrs. Mossop, I mean.
JIM. I think your daughters should be here.
HOBSON. They should. Only they're not. They're married, and I'm deserted by them all and I'll die deserted, then perhaps they'll be sorry for the way they've treated me. Tubby, have you got no work to do in the shop? ”

“ But as Hobson and his men swung onward cheers and a roar of welcome broke the silence, while a cowboy yell came from the Rough Riders. Breaking from all restraint, the men rushed in, eagerly grasping the hands of Hobson and his men. All the way to Siboney the cheers and excitement continued, and when Hobson set foot on the deck of the "New York" the crew grew wild with enthusiasm, while Admiral Sampson embraced him in the warmth of his greeting. As for his comrades, they were fairly swallowed up in the delirious delight of the men. ”

“ HOBSON. Yes, you are. You're pretty, but you're bumptious, and I hate bumptiousness like I hate a lawyer.
ALICE. If we take trouble to feed you it's not bumptious to ask you not to be late for your food.
VICKEY. Give and take, father.
HOBSON. I give and you take, and it's going to end.
MAGGIE. How much a week do you give us?
HOBSON. That's neither here nor there. (Rises and moves to doors L.) At moment I'm on uppishness, and I'm warning you your conduct towards your parent's got to change. (Turns to the counter.) But that's not all. ”

“ 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? ”

“ Here a little mean-looking man, very thin, and almost bent double with perpetual cringing, came up to Mr Hobson, and pulling him by the sleeve, whispered, yet loud enough to be heard, "It's surprizeable to me, Mr Hobson, you can behave so out of the way! For my part, perhaps I've as much my due as another person, but I dares to say I shall have it when it's convenient, and I'd scorn for to mislest a gentleman when he's taking his pleasure." ”

“ General Hobson, contemplating his nephew, and mollified, as we have said, by his splendid appearance, kept saying to himself: "He hasn't a farthing but what poor Laura allows him; he has the tastes of forty thousand a year; a very indifferent education; and what the deuce is he going to do?" ”

“ HOBSON. He can go on waiting. At present, I'm addressing a few remarks to the rebellious females of this house, and what I say will be listened to and heeded. I've noticed it coming on ever since your mother died. There's been a gradual increase of uppishness towards me.
VICKEY. Father, you'd have more time to talk after we've closed to-night. (She is anxious to resume her reading.)
HOBSON. I'm talking now, and you're listening. Providence has decreed that you should lack a mother's hand at the time when single girls grow bumptious and must have somebody to rule. ”

“ HOBSON. "Moonraker's?" Who said—? (Turning.)
VICKEY. If your dinner's ruined, it'll be your own fault.
HOBSON. Well, I'll be eternally—
ALICE. Don't swear, father.
HOBSON (putting hat on counter) . No. I'll sit down instead. (He moves to R. C. and sits in arm-chair R. C. facing them.) Listen to me, you three. I've come to conclusions about you. And I won't have it. Do you hear that? Interfering with my goings out and comings in. The idea! I've a mind to take measures with the lot of you.
MAGGIE. I expect Mr. Heeler's waiting for you in "Moonraker's," father. ”

“ HOBSON. Cretonne! It's pampering folk.
(MAGGIE comes down stage R.)
WILLIE. Cretonne for a cellar, and morocco for this shop. Folk like to be pampered. Pampering pays. (He takes the chair out and returns immediately.) There'll be a carpet on that floor, too.
HOBSON. Carpet! Morocco! Young man, do you think this shop is in Saint Ann's Square, Manchester?
WILLIE. Not yet. But it is going to be.
HOBSON. What does he mean? (Appealing to heaven.)
WILLIE. It's no farther from Chapel Street to Saint Ann's Square than it is from Oldfield Road to Chapel Street. ”

“ ALICE. We shall continue to dress fashionably, father.
HOBSON. Then I've a choice for you two. Vickey, you I'm talking to, and Alice. You'll become sane if you're going on living here. You'll control this uppishness that's growing on you. And if you don't, you'll get out of this, and exercise your gifts on some one else than me. You don't know when you're well off. But you'll learn it when I'm done with you. I'll choose a pair of husbands for you, my girls. That's what I'll do.
ALICE. Can't we choose husbands for ourselves? ”

“ Wilders to Mr. Faulks, "and get no thanks."
"Very much the other thing!" cried Mr. Hobson; "you are about the best abused people in the world, I should say, just now."
"It is hard on us, for I assure you we do our best. We are constantly, uninterruptedly at work. I never know a moment that I may not be wanted—that some special messenger may not be after me. ”

“ Hobson’s homilies must have been awful. How that outraged virtue must have groaned and lamented, gathered its children about its knees, wept over them and washed them; gone into sackcloth and ashes and tied up the knocker ”

“ HOBSON. (incredulous) . A man who's offered a job at Hobson's doesn't want to worry with a shop of his own in a wretched cellar in Oldfield Road.
WILLIE. Shall I tell him, Maggie, or shall we go?
HOBSON. Go! I don't want to keep a man who— (Rises.)
MAGGIE. If he goes, I go with him, father. You'd better speak out, Will.
WILLIE. All right, I will. We've been a year in yon wretched cellar and do you know what we've done? We've paid off Mrs. Hepworth what she lent us for our start and made a bit o' brass on top o' that. We've got your high-class trade away from you. ”

“ He had flourished amazingly since he succeeded to his father's business in the university city, and attained that position of independence which enabled him to force the rule that each horse in his stable was to be hired only in its proper turn, thus originating the proverb, "Hobson's choice," that is, "this or none." Despite his ever growing wealth and advanced years, Hobson continued his regular journeys to London until the outbreak of the plague caused the authorities to suspend the carrier service for a time. ”

“ You want some one to talk to—and not that dreadful Hobson—I can't bear your talking to Hobson, grandfather—"
"I am no respecter of persons, Maisrie," said the old man, pompously, "so long as people know their place, and keep it."
"But that is just the worst of Hobson, grandfather!" she exclaimed. "His fawning and cringing is so despicable. He is not a man at all. And you should tell him the truth about those verses of his, grandfather: I can't imagine how you see anything in them—"
"There have been worse—there have been worse," said Mr. Bethune, with a magnanimous toleration. ”

“ A very important customer goes for fitting into HOBSON'S sitting-room. The rank and file use the cane chairs in the shop, which is dingy but business-like. The windows exhibit little stock, and amongst what there is clogs figure prominently. Through the windows comes the bright light of noon.
Sitting behind the counter are HOBSON'S two younger daughters, ALICE, R., who is twenty-three, and VICTORIA, L., who is twenty-one, and very pretty. ALICE is knitting and VICTORIA is reading. They are in black, with neat black aprons. The door R. opens, and MAGGIE enters. ”

“ JIM. Are you ill?
HOBSON. No. Get away, you girls. I'll look after the shop. I want to talk to Mr. Heeler.
JIM. Well, can't you talk in the "Moonraker's"!
(The girls go out R. to house, MAGGIE last.)
HOBSON. Yes, with Sam Minns, and Denton and Tudsbury there.
JIM. It's private, then. What's the trouble, Henry?
(HOBSON waves JIM into arm-chair R. C. and sits in front of counter.)
HOBSON. They're the trouble. (Indicates door to house.) Do your daughters worry you, Jim?
JIM. Nay,— (sits R. C.) —they mostly do as I bid them, and the missus does the leathering if they don't. ”

“ Having satisfactorily arranged his belongings, Hobson locked the door, and, seating himself behind his desk, appeared ready for business.
"Well, my young friend," he began, "I rather expected you, for I flatter myself that I understand enough of human nature to know that there are very few who will pass by an opportunity of learning something for the advancement of their own interests or the betterment of their own condition in life." ”

“ WILLIE. I can keep my mouth shut if you'd rather.
HOBSON. Don't strain yourself, Will Mossop. When a man's mind is full of thoughts like yours, they're better out than in. You let them come, my lad. They'll leave a cleaner place behind.
WILLIE. I'm not much good at talking, and I always seem to say wrong things when I do talk. I'm sorry if my well-meant words don't suit your taste, but I thought you came here for advice.
HOBSON. I didn't come to you, you jumped-up cock-a-hooping— (Rising.)
MAGGIE. That 'ull do, father. (Pushes him down.) My husband's trying to help you. ”

“ TUBBY (cutting bread) . Every way you look at it. Mr. Hobson's not his own old self, and the shop's not its own old self, and look at me. Now I ask you, Mr. Heeler, man to man, is this work for a foreman shoe hand? Cooking and laying tables and—
JIM. By all accounts there's not much else for you to do.
TUBBY. There's better things than being a housemaid, if it's only making clogs. (Crosses to fire to toast.)
JIM. They tell me clogs are a cut line.
TUBBY. Well, what are you to do? There's nothing else wanted. (Turns.) Hobson's in a bad way, and I'm telling no secret when I say it. ”

“ WILLIE. My word, and that's summat like a squeeze and all.
(HOBSON stares at him.)
MAGGIE. I can see it's serious. I shouldn't wonder if you didn't lose some trade from this.
HOBSON. Wonder! (Rising and moving C.) It's as certain as Christmas. My good-class customers are not going to buy their boots from a man who's stood up in open court and had to acknowledge he was overcome at 12 o'clock in the morning. They'll not remember it was private grief that caused it all. ”

“ MAGGIE. Show me your hands, Willie.
WILLIE. They're dirty. (He holds them out hesitatingly.)
MAGGIE. Yes, they're dirty, but they're clever. They can shape the leather like no other man's that ever came into the shop. Who taught you, Willie? (She retains his hands.)
WILLIE. Why, Miss Maggie, I learnt my trade here.
MAGGIE. Hobson's never taught you to make boots the way you do.
WILLIE. I've had no other teacher.
MAGGIE (dropping his hands.) And needed none. You're a natural born genius at making boots. It's a pity you're a natural fool at all else. ”

“ Here I had arranged to await the arrival of the mail-cart, and proceed viâ Bedford to Grahamstown.
And here, with deep regret, I bade farewell to my friend Hobson—a true-hearted, well-educated Englishman, born in the colony; the son of one of the “1820 settlers;” a brave, bold, fearless, loving man, who hunted lions, leopards, elephants, zebras, and all the large game of Africa in his youth, and was “out” in the war,—a warm friend, a splendid type of those hardy men whose lot it is to subdue the wilderness. ”

“ Hobson and Tarr met in the Boulevard du Paradis.—They met in a gingerly, shuffling fashion. They had so many good reasons for not slowing down when they met: crowds of little antecedent meetings all revivifying like the bacilli of a harmless fever at the sight of each other: pointing to why they should crush their hats over their eyes and hurry on, so that it was a defeat and insanitary to have their bodies shuffling and gesticulating there. “Why cannot most people, having talked and annoyed each other once or twice, rebecome strangers simply? ”

“ HOBSON. Vickey and Alice are mostly window dressing in the shop. But Maggie's too useful to part with. And she's a bit on the ripe side for marrying, is our Maggie.
JIM. I've seen 'em do it at double her age. Still, leaving her out, you've two.
HOBSON. One'll do for a start, Jim. (Crosses to R.) It's a thing I've noticed about wenches. Get one wedding in a family and it goes through the lot like measles. (Moves round chair to up R.)
JIM. Well, you want a man, and you want him temperance. It'll cost you a bit, you know. (Sits in chair below L. side of counter.) ”

“ Hobson, enters the room. He starts back, however, as Mr. Merivale raises his head from the still unopened letter in his hand, and muttering to himself "God bless my soul!" hurries to the mantel-piece, where a glass jug of cold water stands, and quickly pouring out a glassful he takes it to his principal, saying, "You look a little faint and tired this morning, sir; will you drink some water, and then I will ring for the sherry? Dear, dear, how very pale you are, to be sure!" and the kind old man bustles over to the bell, which he pulls vigorously. ”