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Hobson's Choice

All right, I will. We've been a year in...

Overview

Character
Gender
Male
Playing Age
Adult
Style
Dramatic
Act/Scene
Act 4
Time & Place
In Hobson's boot shop, Willie Mossop answers Hobson after a year of building his own cellar business with Maggie.
Length
Short
Time Period
Contemporary
Show Type
Play
Age Guidance
Youth (Y)/General Audiences (G)

Context

Text

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. That shop's a cellar, and as you say, it's wretched, but they come to us in it, and they don't come to you. Your trade's gone down till all you sell is clogs. You've got no trade, and me and Maggie's got it all and now you're on your bended knees to her to come and live with you, and all you think to offer me is my old job at eighteen shillings a week. Me that's the owner of a business that is starving yours to death. Your daughter married me and set about my education. And—and now I'll tell you what I'll do and it'll be the handsome thing and all from me to you. I'll close my shop—I'm doing well, but I'll do better here. I'll transfer to this address and what I'll do that's generous is this: I'll take you into partnership and give you your half-share on the condition you're sleeping partner and you don't try interference on with me.

[For full play text, see:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/6347/6347-h/6347-h.htm]

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