EDWIN
I've said I won't do it. It's against the regulations. Let's leave it at that, shall we?

SEFTON
Regulations...

EDWIN
It's more than we can handle anyway.

SEFTON
Regulations were made to be broken.

EDWIN
What does that mean?

SEFTON
It means that getting around the regulations is what keeps the wheels going around.

EDWIN
Poppycock! What keeps the wheels going around is what Churchill offered us...blood, sweat, and tears. The trouble is, the people that do the cheering aren't usually the ones that do the work. The people who do the work are the people who always did that...the poor, bloody, rank and file.

SEFTON
You don't have to swear at me, Edwin, even if you have been drinking.

EDWIN
I've had four pints of watered-down, working-class beer. The scotch goes to the people with the shares these days, doesn't it? Like shares in a pig, for instance.

SEFTON
I don't like swearing in others any more than I should like it in myself. And I never talk politics in other people's houses.

EDWIN
You must find that very convenient.

SEFTON
I know your views, Edwin. As far as I know, I've always been very tolerant in that respect.

EDWIN
Tolerant? You can afford to be tolerant. Anytime during the past thirty years, you could have had me queuing at the Labour Exchange. It's me who's had to be tolerant. Obsequious. I've swallowed my pride until there wasn't any pride left to swallow.

SEFTON
You think I'd have let my sister be married to a man who was out of work?

EDWIN
And that's about the sum of it, isn't it, Sefton? That's what's kept me in work for the past thirty years. The fact I was married to your sister. Not any ability, any talent I might have had. "He married well." That's the grand total of my obituary, isn't it, Sefton? You don't have to worry about my politics. I've paid lip service to everything. I'm a disgrace to the people that bore me.

 

(from "A Separate Peace" by John Finch)