Mother Superior: May I ask what this meeting is about?
[Polly places a folder on the table]
Thomas Shelby: The Grace Shelby Foundation is the biggest single source of funding for this charitable institution, devoted to the care of the orphaned girls of South Birmingham, yeah?
Mother Superior: For which we give thanks.
Thomas Shelby: Uh-huh.
[he slides the folder across the table]
Aunt Polly: I have a temper similar to the one described in that report. Yet unlike you, I wait until I'm matched in size.
Mother Superior: Whose report?
Aunt Polly: The testimony of children.
[Mother Superior opens the folder]
Mother Superior: Who have they spoken to?
Aunt Polly: You'd have them only speak to God.
Mother Superior: God be their witness.
Thomas Shelby: There is God, and there are the Peaky Blinders. This is Sparkhill, we're in Small Heath. We're much, much closer at hand than God.
Aunt Polly: And we have heard terrible things.
Mother Superior: We have in this place children of the worst sort. They lie as easily as breathe.
Aunt Polly: You had a child half-black. You made her wash with a different soap.
Mother Superior: Mr. Shelby, your own sins are legend.
Thomas Shelby: Our sins? Our sins, against the beating of children with bricks and hoses? Our sins? Our sins...
[he pulls out a small vial, pours some powder into his hand, and blows it across the table at Mother Superior]
Thomas Shelby: ... against the black child who hanged herself for fear of your temper?
Mother Superior: I do not see how...
Thomas Shelby: You do not see?
[he snatches Mother Superior's glasses off her face and smashes them on the table]
Thomas Shelby: Now put 'em on. Put 'em on your face, or it'll be your eyes that are broken. Please don't imagine that I won't use this minute to do it, or that I am afraid of your prayers or your crosses.
[she hesitates, then puts the shattered glasses back on]
Aunt Polly: You see the world broken. Like those beaten children will.
Thomas Shelby: Now look at me.
[no response]
Thomas Shelby: Look at me.
[no response]
Thomas Shelby: LOOK AT ME!
[Mother Superior fearfully raises her eyes to Tommy's]
Thomas Shelby: Funding withdrawn.
Aunt Polly: All children to be taken into our own institutions.
Mother Superior: You have no say in where the children--
[Polly suddenly draws a dagger and points it in Mother Superior's face]
Aunt Polly: If I come for you--and I still might yet decide to come for you--I will wear high heels so you can hear my approach on the cobblestones and have time to repent. You listen for my footsteps.
