AMANDA: At the warehouse. [Laura drops her fork.] I’d heard Tom speak of a nice young man at the warehouse, so when I was down to buy some bedroom slippers, I made him point you out! My, how you were working! It did me good to see such—application! For that’s such a valuable thing the way things are! You can’t—underestimate it. And Tom—so slow, so dreamy—not quite seeming to know where anything was! While you were bustling around with such—assurance . . .

JIM: The way I look at it is—

AMANDA: How do you look at it?

JIM: There’s three types in the world.

AMANDA: Oh! Three? What are they?

JIM: One—the workhorses of the world.

AMANDA: —Oh.

JIM: They do what they’re told to do and at the end of each day they’re given some oats to feed on. Enough to provide the energy for tomorrow.

AMANDA: Mr. Delaney, you surprise me a little.

JIM: Yeah?— Why?

AMANDA: A statement like that—I mean, so—analyzing! But go on! What’s number two?

JIM: Type number two is the drivers! The managers of the workhorses, and owners of them. They portion out the oats and lock up the stable door when the work day is over—open it in the morning. [Grins.] I’ve got this all figured out. But then there is type number three.

AMANDA: Which type is that?

JIM: The Dreamy Type.

AMANDA: My children?

JIM: —Shakespeare—like him, for instance! He doesn’t fit into either classification. He can’t work and he wouldn’t drive.

AMANDA: Can’t work?

JIM: Speaking—figuratively.

AMANDA: —Oh . . .

JIM: There’s quite a number like him, won’t drive and can’t be driven, a monkey wrench in the works.

AMANDA: Oh, how awful!

JIM: But don’t you see, Mrs. Wingfield, if the works aren’t good, then a monkey wrench in them is!

AMANDA: No, I don’t see at all, I think it is awful, to fit into such a worthless classification!

TOM: So I’m a monkey wrench! [He grins.] I’m glad to know I’ve got a definition!

AMANDA [clapping a hand to her forehead]: Oh, my goodness, a monkey wrench for a son! Mr. Delaney, have some more potatoes.

JIM: No, thank you, Ma’am.

AMANDA: What does your father do, Jim?

JIM: He has a retail shoe store in Wyoming.

AMANDA: Shoes! A commodity always in demand! And some day you’ll take over, I suppose?

JIM: My heart is set on radio engineering. I feel there’s a great day coming for television. It will be a field where the dreamy types and the dissatisfied workhorses can flash to the world original pictures of things, and make great changes.

AMANDA: But won’t these “drivers” you speak of flash the pictures?

JIM: Not if we muscle in first, the dreamers and I.