Nick gives them beer.

McCarthy You don’t read enough.

Krupp I do read. I read the Examiner every morning. The Call-Bulletin every night.

McCarthy And carry out orders. What are the orders now?

Krupp To keep the peace down here on the waterfront.

McCarthy Keep it for who? (To Joe.) Right?

Joe (sorrowfully) Right.

Krupp How do I know for who? The peace. Just keep it.

McCarthy It’s got to be kept for somebody. Who would you suspect it’s kept for?

Krupp For citizens!

McCarthy I’m a citizen!

Krupp All right, I’m keeping it for you.

McCarthy By hitting me over the head with a club? (To Joe.) Right?

Joe (melancholy, with remembrance) I don’t know.

Krupp Mac, you know I never hit you over the head with a club.

McCarthy But you will if you’re on duty at the time and happen to stand on the opposite side of myself, on duty.

Krupp We went to Mission High together. We were always good friends. The only time we ever fought was that time over Alma Haggerty. Did you marry Alma Haggerty? (To Joe.) Right?

Joe Everything’s right.

McCarthy No. Did you? (To Joe.) Joe, are you with me or against me?

Joe I’m with everybody. One at a time.

Krupp No. And that’s just what I mean.

McCarthy You mean neither one of us is going to marry the thing we’re fighting for?

Krupp I don’t even know what it is.

McCarthy You don’t read enough, I tell you.

Krupp Mac, you don’t know what you’re fighting for, either.

McCarthy It’s so simple, it’s fantastic.

Krupp All right, what are you fighting for?

McCarthy For the rights of the inferior. Right?

Joe Something like that.

Krupp The who?

McCarthy The inferior. The world full of Mahoneys who haven’t got what it takes to make monkeys out of everybody else near by. The men who were created equal. Remember?

Krupp Mac, you’re not inferior.

McCarthy I’m a longshoreman. And an idealist. I’m a man with too much brawn to be an intellectual, exclusively. I married a small, sensitive, cultured woman so that my kids would be sissies instead of suckers. A strong man with any sensibility has no choice in this world but to be a heel, or a worker. I haven’t the heart to be a heel, so I’m a worker. I’ve got a son in high school who’s already thinking of being a writer.

Krupp I wanted to be a writer once.

Joe Wonderful. (He puts down the paper, looks at Krupp and McCarthy.)

McCarthy They all wanted to be writers. Every maniac in the world that ever brought about the murder of people through war started out in an attic or basement writing poetry. It stank. So they get even by becoming important heels. And it’s still going on.

Krupp Is it really, Joe?

Joe Look at today’s paper.

McCarthy Right now on Telegraph Hill is some punk who is trying to be Shakespeare. Ten years from now he’ll be a senator. Or a communist.