PRESTON. I thought it was a cobbler that stuck to the last.

DOROTHY. Darling, if you make jokes like that I’ll leave you. I promise you.

MOORISH TART. Listen. All time talk. No time anything else. What we do here?

[To PHILIP]

You with me? Yes or no?

PHILIP. You put things so flatly, Anita.

MOORISH TART. Want a answer.

PHILIP. Well then, Anita, it must be in the negative.

MOORISH TART. What you mean? Take picture?

PRESTON. You see connection? Camera, take picture, negative? Charming, isn’t it? She’s so primitive.

MOORISH TART. What you mean take picture? You think me spy?

PHILIP. No, Anita. Please be reasonable. I just meant I wasn’t with you any more. Not just now. I mean it’s more or less off just for now.

MOORISH TART. No? You no with me?

PHILIP. No, my pretty one.

MOORISH TART. You with her?

[Nodding toward DOROTHY]

PHILIP. Possibly not.

DOROTHY. It would need a certain amount of discussion.

MOORISH TART. O.K. I scratch her eyes out.

[She moves toward DOROTHY]

ELECTRICIAN. Camaradas, tengo que trabajar.

DOROTHY. What does he say?

PRESTON. He says he must go to work.

PHILIP. Oh, don’t pay attention to him. He gets these extraordinary ideas. It’s an idée fixe he has.

ELECTRICIAN. Camaradas, soy analfabético.

PRESTON. He says he can’t read or write.

PHILIP. Comrade, I mean, I mean, but really, you know, if we hadn’t all gone to school we’d be in the same fix. Don’t give it a thought, old man.

MOORISH TART. [ToDOROTHY] O.K. I suppose, yes, all right. Downa hatch. Cheerio. Chin chin. Yes, O.K. Only one thing.

DOROTHY. But what, Anita.

MOORISH TART. You gotta take sign down.

DOROTHY. What sign?

MOORISH TART. Sign outside door. All the time working, isn’t fair.

DOROTHY. And I’ve had a sign like that on my room door ever since college and it’s never meant a thing.

MOORISH TART. You take down?

PHILIP. Of course she’ll take it down. Won’t you, Dorothy?

DOROTHY. Certainly, I’ll take it down.

PRESTON. You never do work anyway.

DOROTHY. No, darling. But I always mean to. And I am going to finish that Cosmopolitan article just as soon as I understand things the least bit better.

[There is a crash outside the window in the street, followed by an incoming whistling rush, and another crash. You hear pieces of brick and steel falling, and the tinkle of falling glass]

PHILIP. They’re shelling again.

[He says it very quietly and soberly]

PRESTON. The bastards.

[He says it very bitterly and rather nervously]

PHILIP. You’d best open your windows, Bridges, my girl. There aren’t any more panes now and winter’s coming, you know.

MOORISH TART. You take the sign down?