Joe monologue — Five Little Plays

A shilling a day! Princely! [_His pipe goes out. He takes a last puff at it, squints into it to make sure all the tobacco is gone, then lays it down with a sigh._] I reckon _I'll_ try making 'em too. I went to the Vestry again, this morning, to see whether they'd take me as sweeper--but they've thirty names down, ahead of me. I've tried chopping wood, but I can't--I begin to cough the third stroke--there's something wrong with me inside, somewhere. I've tried every Institution on God's earth--and there are others before me, and there is no vacancy, and I mustn't beg, and I mustn't worry the gentlemen. A shilling a day--can one earn as much as that! Why, Mary, that will be fourteen shillings a week--an income! We'll do it!