[A very small and quite drunken electrician, wearing soiled blue overalls, espadrilles, and a blue beret, comes in the door]

ELECTRICIAN. Salud, Camaradas.

DOROTHY. Well. Yes. Salud.

PHILIP. And here’s a Moorish comrade. You could say the Moorish comrade. Almost unique a Moorish comrade. She’s awfully shy. Come in, Anita.

[Enter a MOORISH TART from Cueta. She is very dark, but well built, kinky-haired and tough looking, and not at all shy]

MOORISH TART. [Defensively] Salud, Camaradas.

PHILIP. This is the comrade that bit Vernon Rodgers that time. Laid him up for three weeks. Hell of a bite.

DOROTHY. Philip, darling, you couldn’t just muzzle the comrade while she’s here, could you?

MOORISH TART. Am insult.

PHILIP. The Moorish comrade learned English in Gibraltar. Lovely place, Gibraltar. I had a most unusual experience there once.

PRESTON. Let’s not hear about it.

PHILIP. You are gloomy, Preston. You haven’t got the party line right on that. All that long-faced stuff is out, you know. We’re practically in a period of jubilation now.

PRESTON. I wouldn’t talk about things you know nothing about.

PHILIP. Well, I see nothing to be gloomy about. What about offering these comrades some sort of refreshment?

MOORISH TART. [ToDOROTHY] You got nice place.

DOROTHY. So good of you to like it.

MOORISH TART. How you keep from be evacuate?

DOROTHY. Oh, I just stay on.

MOORISH TART. How you eat?

DOROTHY. Not always too well, but we bring in tinned things from Paris in the Embassy pouch.

MOORISH TART. You what, Embassy pouch?

DOROTHY. Tinned things, you know. Civet lièvre. Foie gras. We had some really delicious Poulet de Bresse. From Bureau’s.

MOORISH TART. You make fun me?

DOROTHY. Oh, no. Of course not. I mean we eat those things.

MOORISH TART. I eat water soup.

[She stares at DOROTHY belligerently]

What’s a matter? You no like way I look? You think you better than me?

DOROTHY. Of course not. I’m probably much worse. Preston will tell you I’m infinitely worse. But we don’t have to be comparative, do we? I mean in war time and all that, and you know all working for the same cause.

MOORISH TART. I scratch you eyes out if you think that.

DOROTHY. [Appealingly, but very languid] Philip, please talk to your friends and make them happy.

PHILIP. Anita, listen to me.

MOORISH TART. O.K.

PHILIP. Anita. Dorothy here is a lovely woman——

MOORISH TART. No lovely woman this business.

ELECTRICIAN. [Standing up] Camaradas me voy.

DOROTHY. What does he say?

PRESTON. He says he’s going.

PHILIP. Don’t believe him. He always says that.

[To ELECTRICIAN]

Comrade, you must stay.

ELECTRICIAN.—Camaradas entonces me quedo.

DOROTHY. What?

PRESTON. He says he’ll stay.

PHILIP. That’s more like it, old man. You wouldn’t rush off and leave us, would you, Marconi? No. An electrical comrade can be depended on to the last.