You’re surprised? You’re surprised to see me getting rid of this money so quickly, eh? I’ll explain it to you. There was a time in my life when my chief interest was picking up money that didn’t belong to me. The law is there to protect property, but—sure, the law doesn’t care whether a property owner deserves his property or not, and the law has to be corrected. There are several thousands of people in this country engaged in correcting the law. For a while, I too was engaged in the redistribution of superfluities. A man works all his life and leaves a million to his widow. She sits in hotels and eats great meals and plays cards all afternoon and evening, with ten diamonds on her fingers. Call in the robbers! Call in the robbers! Or a man leaves it to his son who stands leaning against bars all night boring a bartender. Call in the robbers! Stealing’s a weakness. There are some people who say you shouldn’t have any weaknesses at all—no vices. But if a man has no vices, he’s in great danger of making vices out of his virtues, and there’s a spectacle. We’ve all seen them: men who were monsters of philanthropy and women who were dragons of purity. We’ve seen people who told the truth, though the Heavens fall,—and the Heavens fell. No, no—nurse one vice in your bosom. Give it the attention it deserves and let your virtues spring up modestly around it. Then you’ll have the miser who’s no liar; and the drunkard who’s the benefactor of a whole city. Well, after I’d had that weakness of stealing for a while, I found another: I took to whisky—whisky took to me. And then I discovered an important rule that I’m going to pass on to you: Never support two weaknesses at the same time. It’s your combination sinners—your lecherous liars and your miserly drunkards—who dishonor the vices and bring them into bad repute. So now you see why I want to get rid of this money: I want to keep my mind free to do the credit to whisky that it deserves. And my last word to you, ladies and gentlemen, is this: one vice at a time.

Goes over to Cornelius.

Can I speak to you for a minute?

CORNELIUS:

Rises.

You certainly can. We all want to apologize to you about that screen—that little misunderstanding.

They all rise, with exclamations of apology.

What’s your name, sir?

MALACHI:

Stack, sir. Malachi Stack. If the ladies will excuse you, I’d like to speak to you for a minute.

Draws CORNELIUS down to front of stage.

Listen, boy, have you lost . . . ? Come here . . .

Leads him further down, out of Vandergelder’s hearing.

Have you lost something?

CORNELIUS:

Mr. Stack, in this one day I’ve lost everything I own.

MALACHI:

There it is.

Gives him purse.

Don’t mention it.

CORNELIUS:

Why, Mr. Stack . . . you know what it is? It’s a miracle.