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They will know the value of sleep when they are near upon ninety years.

SECOND OLD MAN: They will never live so long. They have not the health and strength that we had. They wear themselves out. They are always in a passion about something or other.

FIRST OLD MAN: Hush! I hear a step now, and it is coming this way. We had best pull in our heads. The world has grown very wicked and there is no knowing what they might do to us, or say to us.

SECOND OLD MAN: Yes, better shut the windows and pretend to be asleep. (They pull in their heads. One hears a knocker being struck in the distance, then a pause and a knocker is struck close at hand. Another pause and Septimus a handsome man of thirty-five staggers on to the stage. He is very drunk.)

SEPTIMUS: An uncharitable place, an unchristian place. (He begins banging at a knocker.) Open there, open there. I want to come in and sleep.

(A Third Old Man puts his head from an upper window.)

THIRD OLD MAN: Who are you? What do you want?

SEPTIMUS: I am Septimus. I have a bad wife. I want to come in and sleep.

THIRD OLD MAN: You are drunk.

SEPTIMUS: Drunk! So would you be if you had as bad a wife.

THIRD OLD MAN: Go away. (He shuts the window.)

SEPTIMUS: Is there not one Christian in this town? (He begins hammering the knocker of the First Old Man, but there is no answer.) No one there? All dead or drunk maybe—bad wives. There must be one Christian man.

(He hammers a knocker at the other side of the stage. An Old Woman puts her head out of the window above.)

OLD WOMAN (in a shrill voice): Who's there? What do you want? Has something happened?

SEPTIMUS: Yes, that's it. Something has happened. My wife has hid herself, has run away, or has drowned herself.

OLD WOMAN: What do I care about your wife! You are drunk.

SEPTIMUS: Not care about my wife! But I tell you that my wife has to play by order of the Prime Minister before all the people in the great hall of the Castle precisely at noon and she cannot be found.

OLD WOMAN: Go away, go away! I tell you, go away. (She shuts the window.)

SEPTIMUS: Treat Septimus, who has played before Kubla Kahn, like this. Septimus, dramatist and poet! (The Old Woman opens the window again and empties a jug of water over him.) Water! drenched to the skin—must sleep in the street. (Lies down.) Bad wife—others have had bad wives, but others were not left to lie down in the open street under the stars, drenched with cold water, a whole jug of cold water, shivering in the pale light of the dawn, to be run over, to be trampled upon, to be eaten by dogs, and all because their wives have hidden themselves.

(Enter Two Men a little older than Septimus. They stand still and gaze into the sky.)

FIRST MAN: Ah my friend, the little fair-haired one is a minx.

SECOND MAN: Never trust fair hair—I will have nothing but brown hair.

FIRST MAN: They have kept us too long—brown or fair.

SECOND MAN: What are you staring at?