The Narrow Corner

Fred Blake:
I'll wait.

Captain Nichols:
Why? This is Kim Ching's store. Good beer. I could do with a swallow. Blimy, if it ain't a white man?

Captain Nichols:
This is Kim Ching's ain't it?

Doctor Saunders:
Yes.

Captain Nichols:
I ain't seen him in donkey's years. I thought I'd come in and have chin-wag with him.

Fred Blake:
Where do you want to go Doctor?

Doctor Saunders:
Oh, any Dutch island where I can get a ship to take me on my way.

Fred Blake:
Alright. I suppose that will be better than being cooped up only with a belching idiot.

Fred Blake:
Who are you?

Louise Frith:
Where did you come from?

Fred Blake:
You're beautiful.

Louise Frith:
And you're English!

Fred Blake:
Oh, st-stay where you are.

Louise Frith:
Why?

Fred Blake:
Well, I, I, I, I don't have have any clothes on.

Louise Frith:
What of it?

Eric Whittenson:
[From off in a distance] Hello!

Fred Blake:
Who's that?

Louise Frith:
Oh, that's only Eric.

Fred Blake:
Eric? Oh, well, perhaps I ought to go.

Louise Frith:
Why?

Fred Blake:
Well, a fellow doesn't like to see his girl talking to another fellow with no clothes on, does he!

Louise Frith:
Is that what they think in Australia?

Captain Nichols:
I'm a seafaring man, myself.

Jack Swan:
I been Captain of a schooner in the slave trade. You go up to Port Moresby and ask anybody about Jack Swan. They'll remember me. I'm the first white man to ever walk across the islands, alone.

Captain Nichols:
Blackbirding, eh? Have you ever run Chinamen? Well, I have.

Jack Swan:
I've been a blacksmith, a planter and a trader.

Captain Nichols:
I've run a donkey engine, skinned mules, and fought cannibals. I've made a bit of money in my time.

Jack Swan:
Well, I was ruined by the great hurricane. Lost everything I had. I've had four wives and more children than you could count.

Captain Nichols:
I'd much rather look like a crook, than like a fool.

Fred Blake:
Where'd you learn to dance like that?

Louise Frith:
I followed you, that's all.

Fred Blake:
What if they should call?

Louise Frith:
Tell them, tell them I've gone to bed. It's quiet and dark in my room. And I can think.

Jack Swan:
I spent seven years in New Guinea, I did. I speak every language that is ever spoke in New Guinea. Go up there and ask anybody.

Captain Nichols:
Don't talk to me about New Guinea. There was a chief there wanted me to marry one of his black daughters, he did. If I'd a had any sense, I'd stayed there and been king of the cannibal islands.

Eric Whittenson:
I don't mind waiting. When you love anyone as I love Louise, a few months or a year, don't matter.

Fred Blake:
You love her like that?

Eric Whittenson:
Yes. Of course, you've only just seen her. You don't realize how beautiful she really is. And there's something else in her, too. Like a wathe, not quite at home in the haunts of men. It's so beautiful that I almost regret that she can't always keep it.

Doctor Saunders:
Why shouldn't she?

Eric Whittenson:
I feel she'll lose it when she becomes a wife and a mother. It's the soul of her that's so beautiful.

Doctor Saunders:
Don't be silly.

Eric Whittenson:
Why is it silly? It makes me ashamed that I won't got to her as pure as she'll come to me.

Doctor Saunders:
My dear boy, the most valuable thing I've learned from life is to regret nothing. Life is short. Nature is hostile and man is ridiculous.

Captain Nichols:
You can put your love and your golden harps, where the monkey put the peanuts.

Mr. Frith:
Never mind, Swan, you've only torn up a few dozen sheets of paper. They were merely an illusion. It would be foolish to give them a second thought. The reality of the poem remains. That is indestructible.

Doctor Saunders:
Six pipes, Ah Kay, no more, no less.

Fred Blake:
I don't know what it all means. Why am I here? Where am I going?

Doctor Saunders:
My dear boy, men have been asking those questions since they stopped throwing coconuts at each other in the primeval forests and picked up a glimmer of intelligence.

Fred Blake:
Don't you believe in anything?

Doctor Saunders:
Nothing except myself and my experience. The world consist of me, my thoughts and my feelings. Everything else is mere fancy.

Fred Blake:
I want life to be fair. I want life to be brave and honest. I'm not willing to stand by while the good are punished and the wicked go scott free. I want all men to be descent. Surely, that's not asking too much.

Doctor Saunders:
I don't know. It's asking more than life can give. Remember the words of Disraeli, Youth is a blunder, Maturity is struggle, and Old Age are a grit.

Doctor Saunders:
Youth. You're just a stranger in this world, yet. Presently you will learn to do without what you cannot get and make the most of what you can. A little common sense. A little tolerance. A little good humor. And you can make yourself very comfortable on this planet.

Fred Blake:
Resignation. The refuge of the beaten. Well, keep your resignation, I don't want it! I'm not willing to accept evil and ugliness and injustice. If life means that every thing I believe in is to be trampled on, then to the devil with life!

Fred Blake:
Why can't you leave me alone!

Louise Frith:
I don't know. Something bigger than I am. We can't help ourselves any more than we can help the wind or the sea.