CARTER: I knowed you would be, Mr. Gibson. It's all just wonderful the way things are working out!
GIBSON: Everything is working out just right, is it?
CARTER: Oh, I don't say everything! They's bound to be some little mites here and there. You know that yourself.
GIBSON [grimly]: Yes, I do! What areyourlittle mites, Carter?
CARTER: Well, what mostly gits my goat is this here Simpson's wife, Mrs.Simpson.
GIBSON: What bothers you about Simpson's wife?
CARTER: Well, what I says, woman's place is the home, and this here Mrs.Simpson—I—I never could stand no loud, gabby woman!
GIBSON: You're not neighbours, are you?
CARTER: No! She spends all her days at the factory; you might think she was running the whole place! What's worse'n that, you know they elected me chairman o' the governing committee, and she's all the time trying to 'lectioneer me out. What she wants is to git Simpson in for chairman; that'd be jest same's her bein' chairman herself, the way she runs Simpson! That's the only thing that worries me. Everything else is just splendid, splendid!
GIBSON: I understand you don't blow the whistle any more. What hours are you working now?
CARTER: Well, first we thought we ought to work about six; but we got on such a good basis a good many of them are talkin' how they think that's too much. It'd suit me either way.Thatain't the trouble over at that factory, Mr. Gibson.
GIBSON: What is the trouble over at that factory?
CARTER [with feeling]: Mr. Gibson, it's the inequality. Look at me now, and look at Simpson. Simpson and his wife haven't got a child, and I got seven, every one of 'em to support, and my married daughter lost her husband and got a shock, and I got her and her three little ones pretty much on my hands. And Simpson draws down every cent as much as what I do; just exactly the same. And if the truth was told he don't work as much as what I do. Then, look at them bachelors; they ain't gotnobodyto support! Well, that's got to be settled!
GIBSON: How are you going to settle it?
CARTER [cheerfully]: Oh, the committee meetin' settles everything by vote. I'd of put a motion about these matters at some o' the meetings long ago except I'm chairman and they worked a rule on me the chairman can't put motions. But some of us got it fixed up to git it put over at the meeting to-morrow. That's thebigmeeting to-morrow—the monthly one. Don't misunderstand me, Mr. Gibson; I ain't makin' no complaint about these here details, because everything else is so splendid and prosperous it seems like this here New Dawn Mr. Mifflin called it in his article.
GIBSON: Nothing else worries you then, Carter?
CARTER: Nothing else in the world, Mr. Gibson. Except there might be some of 'em don't take their responsibilities the way I could wish. Fact is, there's so much talkin' gits to goin' over there sometimes you can't hear yourself work. Me? I'm an honest worker, if I work for you or work for myself. But I can't claim they're all that way. Some that used to loaf, you can't claim they don't loaf more than they did; yes, sir!
GIBSON: They get just the same as you do, though, don't they?
CARTER: Oh, yes! That's thesinee que none; it's the brotherhood between comrades. I don't mean to complain, but they's one thing that don't look to me just fair. It took me four years to learn my trade and I'm a skilled workman, and now some Hunnyacks that just sends strips along through a chute—and it's all they do know how to do—they used to git two and a half a day to my six, but this way we both git just the same. I says something about it didn't seem right to me, and one them Hunnyacks called me a boor-jaw. Well, then I talked to Miss Gorodna about it.
GIBSON: What did Miss Gorodna say?
CARTER: Miss Gorodna says: "But you both get enough, don't you?"
GIBSON: Well, don't you?
CARTER [scratching his head]: Yes, plenty; and itsoundsall right, them and me gittin' the same; but I can't just seem to work it out in my mind how itisright. [Cheering up.] Mr. Mifflin says himself, though, it's just wonderful! And we certainly are makin' great money!
GIBSON: Then all you poor are getting rich?
CARTER: Yes; looks like we will be.
[During these speechesNORAhas appeared, or rather her head and shoulders have, above the hedge. She has come along the hedge and now stands halting at the gate. She wears a becoming autumn dress and hat, in excellent taste; carries a slim umbrella. She has a beautifully bound book in her hand.]
NORA [opening the gate]: Do you mind my coming in the side gate, Mr.Gibson?
[GIBSON,startled by her voice, turns abruptly fromCARTERto stare at her, speaks after a pause, slowly.]
GIBSON: No, I don't mind what gate you come in.
NORA [coming down to join them]: How do you do! [Gives him her hand.]
GIBSON: How do you do!
CARTER [on the other side of her]: How do you do, Miss Gorodna!
NORA [for a brief moment confused that she has not noticedCarter]: Oh—oh, how do you do, Mr. Carter! [Turns and shakes hands with him. She turns again, facingGIBSON.] I just heard you were here. I wanted to bring you this copy of Montaigne—if you'll forgive me for keeping it a year.
GIBSON: I gave it to you. Don't you—remember?
NORA: Yes, I—remember. But things were different then. Please. I think I oughtn't to keep it now. [He takes it, places it gently upon the table; they sit facing each other; she speaks more cheerfully and briskly.] I came to see you on a matter of business, too.
CARTER: Well, then, I'll just be—
NORA: Oh, no! Please stay, Mr. Carter! It's a factory matter. [CARTERcoughs and sits.NORAcontinues, not pausing for that.] It was about that great stock of wire you had your purchasing agent buy just before the—before you went away, Mr. Gibson.
GIBSON: I'm glad to see you looking so well, Miss Gorodna.
NORA: Thank you! If you remember, you must have ordered him to buy all the wire of our grade that was in the market at that time. At any rate, we found ourselves in possession of an enormous stock that would have lasted us about three years.
GIBSON: Yes. That's what I wanted.
NORA: As it happened it turned out to be a very good investment, Mr. Gibson, because in less than a month it had gained about nine per cent. in value, and three weeks ago a man came to us and offered to take it off our hands at a price giving us a twenty-two per cent. profit!
GIBSON: Yes; I should think he would.
NORA: So of course we sold it.
GIBSON [checks an exclamation, merely saying]: Did you?
NORA: Naturally we did! Twenty-two per cent. profit in that short time! Now it just happens that we've got to buy some more ourselves, and we can't get hold of any, even at the price that we sold it, because it seems to have kept going up. I thought perhaps you might know where to get some at the price you bought the other, and you mightn't mind telling us.
GIBSON: No; I wouldn't mind telling you. I'd like to tell you.
NORA: You think there isn't any?
GIBSON: I'm sure there isn't any.
NORA: Then I'm afraid we'll have to get some back from the people we sold to. Of course I'm anxious to show the great financial improvement as well as other improvements. That's partly my province and Mr. Carter's, our committee chairman, besides our regular work.
GIBSON: Mr. Mifflin tells me that you had a sort of general manager for a while at first.
CARTER: Oh, that was Hill, the head bookkeeper. He left. He was a traitor to the comrades.
GIBSON: Hill? He knew quite a little about the business. Why did he leave?
CARTER: Why, that Coles-Hibbard factory went and offered him a big salary to come over there; more than he thought he could get coöperatin' with us.
NORA: Hill was always a capitalist at heart. We certainly haven't needed him!
CARTER: Oh, everybody was glad to get rid of Hill! Better off without him—better off without him!
GIBSON: I suppose it was really an economy, his going?
NORA [smiling]: It resulted in economy.
GIBSON: Have you made many economies?
NORA: Oh, a great many!
CARTER: Oh, my! Yes!
NORA: Economies! [Her manner now is indulgent, amused, friendly, almost pitying.] Mr. Gibson, have you any realization of what you threw away at that place? Don't be afraid, I'll never bring you the figures. I wouldn't do such a thing to anybody!
GIBSON: Do you think I was too lavish?
NORA: We couldn't believe it at first. Just what was being thrown away on advertising, for instance. The bill you paid for the last month you were there was five thousand dollars!
CARTER: That was the figger! It's certainly a good one on you, Mr.Gibson.
NORA: We cut that five thousand dollars down tothree hundred! That was one item of forty-seven hundred dollars a month saved. Just one item!
CARTER [hilariously]: Quite some item!
NORA [seriously and gently]: Five thousand dollars a month to advertise a piano that sells for only a hundred and eighty-eight dollars!
CARTER: That's the facts!
NORA: Mr. Gibson, did you really ever have any idea what you were paying in commissions to agents?
GIBSON: Yes, I did.
NORA: Why, I can't believe it! Did you know that you paid them twenty per cent. on each piano? Over thirty-seven dollars!
GIBSON: Yes.
NORA: But wasn't it thrown away? I can't understand how you kept the factory going so long as you did, with such losses. Why, don't you know it amounts to hundreds of thousands of dollars a year? When we found it out we couldn't see how you made both ends meet, and we thought there must have been some mistake, and you'd never realized what advantage these agents were taking of you.
GIBSON: Yes, I knew what they got.
NORA [triumphantly]: We cut those commissions from thirty-seven dollars—totwelve! And that's just one more item among our economies. Now do you wonder at the success we're making?
GIBSON: And your profits have been—satisfactory?
NORA: The very first month our profits werefour thousand dollarsmore than the last month you were there!
GIBSON: That's the month you say you cut out four thousand seven hundred dollars' worth of advertising.
NORA: And the next month we cut down the commissions, and the profits werefivethousand more!
GIBSON: But those were returns under the old commissions.
NORA: But last month, with new economies, we showed a larger profit than you had!
GIBSON: And this month?
NORA: We shan't know that until the report's read at the meeting to-morrow. I think it will be the largest profit of all.
CARTER: That bookkeeper's workin' on it to-day. Talked like he was going to cut us down two or three thousand, mebbe. [Laughing.] That's the way he always talks.
NORA: He isn't a good influence.
CARTER: No—too gloomy, too gloomy to suit me!
GIBSON: What about the two other bookkeepers?
CARTER: The committee voted them into the packing department; and they ain't much good even there. It's a crime!
NORA: They weren't needed. Our bookkeeping is so simplified since you left!
GIBSON: It all seems to be simplified, Miss Gorodna.
NORA: Yes; and whatever problems come up, they're all settled at our meetings.
[A sound of squabbling is heard upon the street, growing louder as the people engaging in it approach along the sidewalk.]
CARTER: There's one we got to bring up and do something about at the meetin' to-morrow.
GIBSON: What is it? [CARTERgoes up to the gate.]
NORA: It's that Mrs. Simpson; she's a great nuisance.
CARTER: Yes, it's her and Simpson and Frankel. The Simpsons moved into a flat right up in this neighbourhood. Quite some of the comrades live up round here now.
[FRANKELandMRS. SIMPSONare heard disputing as they approach: "Well, what you goin' to do about it!" "I'll show you what we're goin' to do about it!" "You can't do nothing!" "You wait till to-morrow and see." "I got my rights, ain't I?" and so on.]
SIMPSON [heard remonstrating]: Now, Mamie, Mamie! Frankel, you oughtn't to talk to Mamie that way.
[GIBSON,interested and amused, goes part way up to the hedge.NORAis somewhat mortified as the disputants reach the gate.GIBSONspeaks to them.]
GIBSON: How do you do, Simpson! How do you do, Mrs. Simpson! How do you do, Frankel! Won't you come in and argue here?
MRS. SIMPSON: Wha'd you say, Mr. Gibson?
GIBSON: I said come in; come in!
SIMPSON [uncertainly]: Well, I don't know.
GIBSON: Come in! Nobody here but friends of yours. Sit down. I'd like to hear what the argument was about.
[MRS. SIMPSONis a large woman, domineering and noisy, dressed somewhat expensively. She is proud of some new furs and a pair of quite fancy shoes.SIMPSONhas a new suit of clothes and a gold-headed cane.
FRANKELwears a cheap cutaway suit and is smoking a cigar.]
MRS. SIMPSON: I don't care who hears the argument! Right's right and wrong's wrong!
FRANKEL: You bet right's right, and so's my rights right!
MRS. SIMPSON: You ain't got any rights.
FRANKEL [hotly to everybody]: Do you hear she says I ain't got no rights at all?
MRS. SIMPSON: You ain't got the rights you claim you got.
FRANKEL: She comes down there and tries to run the whole factory. Ask any of 'em if she don't. Ask Carter!
MRS. SIMPSON: I own that factory just as much as anybody does.
SIMPSON: Now, Frankel, you be careful what you say to Mamie!
FRANKEL: I got shares in that factory and by rights ought to have as many votes at the meetin' as I got shares—let alone your talking about trying to root me out of my profits!
GIBSON: What's this about Frankel having shares?
FRANKEL [violently]: You bet your life I got shares! And I'm going to have my shares of the money at that meetin' to-morrow!
MRS. SIMPSON: You bet your life you ain't!
SIMPSON: You think we're goin' to vote all our profits away to you?
CARTER: Wait a minute! Ain't I the chairman of that—
MRS. SIMPSON: You may be chairman yet—but not long!
FRANKEL [sharply toCARTER]: You just try to rule me out once!
GIBSON: What's it all about?
MRS. SIMPSON: I'll soon enough tell anybody what it's about!
FRANKEL: You couldn't tell nothing straight!
CARTER [deprecatingly]: Now, now, this here's just one of our little side difficulties, you might say. What's the use to git huffy over it, we're gittin' along so well and all? The trouble is, some o' the men and their families ain't been used to so much prosperity and money in the house that way, all of a sudden. Of course some of 'em got to living too high and run into some debt and everything.
FRANKEL: Well, what business is that of yours? The factory ain't a Home, is it? And you ain't the Matron, are you?
CARTER: I don't claim such!
FRANKEL: It's my business, ain't it, if I take and live on the cheaps and put by for a rainy day, and happen to have money when other people need it from me?
SIMPSON:Thatmuch may be your business, but I reckon it was our business when you come blowin' round the factory, first that you owned seven shares besides your own; then, a week after, you says seventeen; then—
GIBSON: Well, how many shares has he got?
SIMPSON: He was claimin' twenty-four yesterday.
MRS. SIMPSON [violently]: He's bought two more since last night. Now he claims twenty-six!
FRANKEL: Yes; and Iowntwenty-six!
CARTER: That ain't never goin' to do! I don't say it's a condition as you might say we exactly see how to handle right now, but the way it is, you certainly got us all disturbed up and hard to git at the rights of it. You claimin' all them shares—
FRANKEL: Well, my goodness, you git theworkfer them shares, don't you? What you yelpin' about?
CARTER: I don't say we don't git the same amount o' work, but—
FRANKEL: Well,howyou git it, that's my lookout, ain't it, so it's done?
CARTER: But you claim you got a right to draw out twenty-six profits!
FRANKEL: Sure I do when I furnish the labour for twenty-six. Am I crazy?
CARTER: But that way you're makin' more than any ten men put together in the whole factory!
FRANKEL: Ain't it just? What you goin' to do about it?
[During this speechSHOMBERGhas come along the street andstands looking over the gate.]
CARTER: Well, so fur, we ain't been able to see how to argue with you.It don't look right, and yet it's hard to find jest what to say to you.
FRANKEL: You bet it is!
CARTER: 'Course, that's one of the points that's got to be settled at the meeting to-morrow.
FRANKEL: You bet it'll be settled!
MRS. SIMPSON: If we had another kind of a chairman it'd been settled long ago, and settled right!
CARTER: Now look here, Mrs. Simpson—
FRANKEL [passionately]: I got twenty-six shares, and I earned 'em, too! [ToGIBSON.] Look at the trouble they make me—to git my legal rights, let alone the rest the trouble I got! [Fiercely toCARTERand toSIMPSON]: Yes, I had twenty-four shares yesterday and I got twenty-six to-day! and I might have another by to-night. Don't think I'm the only one that's got sense enough not to go smearin' his money all round on cheap limousines and Queen Anne dinin'-room sets at eighty-nine dollars per! [Dramatically pointing atSHOMBERG]: There's a man worth four shares right now! He had three and he bought Mitchell's out last night at Steinwitz's pool room. Ask him whether he thinks I got a right to my twenty-six profits or not!
SHOMBERG: You bet your life!
MRS. SIMPSON: I guess that Dutchman hasn't got the say-so, has he?
FRANKEL: No.Yourun the factory now, Mrs. Simpson!
CARTER: Now look here; this ain't very much like comrades, is it, all this arguin'? Sunday, too!
FRANKEL: Oh, I'm tryin' to be friendly!
CARTER [toGIBSON]: This buyin' of shares and all has kind of introduced a sort of an undesirable element into the factory, you might say. That's kind of the bothersome side of it, and it can't be denied we would have quite a good deal of bothersomeness if it wasn't for our meeting.
NORA [to everybody exceptGIBSON]: Don't you all think that these arguments are pretty foolish when you know that nothing can be settled except at the governing committee's meeting?
SIMPSON: That's so, Miss Gorodna. What's more, it don't look like as good comrades as it ought to. I don't want to have no trouble with Frankel. He might have the rights of it for all I know. Anyways, if he hasn't I ain't got the brains to make out the case against him, and anyways, as you say, the meetin' settles all them things.
NORA: Don't you think you and Frankel might shake hands now, like good comrades?
FRANKEL [with hostility]: Sure, I'll shake hands with him!
SIMPSON: Well, I just as soon.
MRS. SIMPSON: Don't you do it, Henry!
SIMPSON: Well, but he's a comrade.
MRS. SIMPSON: Well, you can't help that! You don't have to shake hands with him.
SIMPSON: Well, consider it done, Frankel. Consider it done!
CARTER: That's right, that's right! We can leave it to the meeting.
SHOMBERG: You bet you can! You goin' my way, Frankel?
[FRANKEL,joining him, speaks toMRS. SIMPSON.]
FRANKEL: I s'pose you're going to come to the meetin', Mrs. Simpson?
MRS. SIMPSON: Ain't my place where my husband is?
FRANKEL: Well, you don't git no vote!
MRS. SIMPSON: There's goin' to be a motion introduced for the wivestovote.
FRANKEL: Watch it pass! Good-bye, Mr. Gibson!
[GIBSONnods.FRANKELgoes away withSHOMBERG.]
SIMPSON: Good-bye, Mr. Gibson! All this don't amount to much. It'll all be settled to-morrow.
MRS. SIMPSON: Good-bye, Mr. Gibson! [And as they go out the gate]: You bet your life it'll be settled! If that wall-eyed runt thinks he can walk overme—
CARTER [looking after them, laughing]: Well, she's an awful interfering woman! And she ain't the only one. If they'd all stay home like my wife things would be smoother, I guess. Still, they're smooth enough. [Going]: If you want to see that, Mr. Gibson, we'll be glad to have you look in at the meeting. You're always welcome at the factory and it'd be a treat to you to see how things work out. It's at eleven o'clock if you'd like to come.
GIBSON: Thanks, Carter.
CARTER: Well, good afternoon, Mr. Gibson and Miss Gorodna. Good evening,I should say, I reckon.
GIBSON: Good evening, Carter.
[The light has grown to be of sunset.CARTERgoes.]
NORA [going toward the gate]: I'm glad to see you looking so well.Good evening!
GIBSON: Oh, just a minute more.
NORA: Well?
GIBSON: It looks as if that might be a lively meeting to-morrow.
NORA: Is that the old capitalistic sneer?
GIBSON: Indeed it's not! It only seemed to me from what we've just heard here—
NORA [bitterly]: Oh, I suppose all business men's meetings and arguments, when their interests happen to clash, are angelically sweet and amiable! Because you see that my comrades are human and have their human differences—
GIBSON: Nora, don't be angry.
NORA: I'll try not. Ofcourseit isn't all a bed of roses! Ofcoursethings don't run like oiled machinery!
GIBSON: But they do run?
NORA: It's magnificent!
GIBSON: Do you want me to come to that meeting to-morrow?
NORA: Yes; I'd like you to see how reasonable people settle their differences when they have an absolutely equal and common interest.
GIBSON [in a low voice]: Aren't you ever tired?
[For a moment she has looked weary. She instantly braces up and answers with spirit.]
NORA: Tired of living out my ideals?
GIBSON: No; I just mean tired of working. Wouldn't you rather stop and come here and live in this quiet house?
NORA [incredulously]: I?
GIBSON: Couldn't there even be a chance of it, Nora? That you'd marry me?
NORA [amazed and indignant]: A chance that I would—
GIBSON: Well, then, wouldn't you even be willing to leave it to the meeting to-morrow?
[Already in motion she gives him a look of terror and intense negation.]
NORA: Oh! [She runs from the gateway.]
The scene is the same as the first, the factory office—with a difference. It is now littered and disorderly. Files have been taken from the cases and left heaped upon the large table and upon chairs. Piles of mail are on the desk and upon the table. The safe is open, showing papers in disorder and hanging from the compartments. Hanging upon the walls, variously, are suits of old overalls and men's coats and, hats. The chairs stand irregularly about the large table; a couple of old soft hats are on the water filter. The former posters have been replaced by two new ones. One shows a brawny workman with whiskers, paper cap, and large sledge hammer leaning upon an upright piano. Rubrics: "The Freedom and Fraternity Coöperative Upright." "The Piano You Ought to Support." The other poster shows a workman with a banner upon which is printed: "No Capital! The Freedom and Fraternity Coöperative Upright The Only Piano Produced by Toilers Not Ground by Capital. Buy One to Help the Cause!"
NORAis busily engaged atGIBSON'Sdesk. Her hat and jacket hang on the wall.
CARTERenters, smoking a pipe; he wears overalls and jumper. He carries a heavy roll of typewritten sheets. Tosses this upon the table, glances atNORA,who does not notice him, divests himself of overalls and jumper, and puts on the black frock coat which he wore in Act II. He looks at his watch and at the clock on the wall.
CARTER [straightening out his coat]: I thought it might look better to get on my Sunday clothes for the meeting, as you might say, Miss Gorodna. Being as I'm chairman it might look more dignified; kind o' help give a kind of authority, maybe.
NORA [absently, not looking up]: Yes.
CARTER [looking at his watch and at the clock again]: It ought to be wound up for meetings. [He steps upon a chair; moves the hands of clock.] There, doggone it, the key's lost! I believe Mrs. Simpson took that key for their own clock. [He goes to the table; sits, unrolls the typewritten sheets, puts on his spectacles, and studies the sheets in a kind of misery, roughing his hair badly and making sounds of moaning.] Miss Gorodna, can you make this figure out here for me? Does that mean profits—or what?
NORA: Oh, no; that's only an amount carried over.
CARTER: They's so many little puzzlin' things in this bookkeeper's report. I don't believe he understands it himself. I don't see how he expects me to read that to the meeting. Some parts I can't make head or tail of. Others it looks like he's got the words jest changed round.
NORA: Oh, we'll work it all out at the meeting, Mr. Carter!
CARTER: My, we got a lot to work out at this meeting.
NORA: We'll do it, comrade!
CARTER [cheering up]: Sure! Sure we will! It's wonderful what a meeting does; I'm always forgettin' all we got to do is vote and then the trouble's over.
[Instantly upon this a loud squabbling and women's voices areheard outside, in the factory.]
NORA [troubled]: I was afraid this would happen. Of course after Mrs.Simpson came other wives were bound to.
CARTER [uneasily moving toward the door to the street]: Well, I guessI better—
[The door into the factory is flung open byMRS. SIMPSON,in a state of fury. Another woman's voice is heard for a moment, shouting: "Old Cat! Old She-Cat! Wants to be a Tom-Cat!"]
MRS. SIMPSON: See here, Carter, if you still pretend to be chairman you come out here and keep order!
CARTER: Now, Mrs. Simpson, you better go on home!
MRS. SIMPSON [raging]:Me!My place is right here, but I'm not going to stand this Commiskey woman's insults! She come down here this morning with her husband and started right in torunthis factory. My heavens! Ain't she got five children at home? As long as you still pretend to be chairman I demand you come out and tell this woman to go about her business.
SHREWISH VOICE: Itismy business!
MRS. SIMPSON: I'll show you! I was here first; everything was going all right. Carter, are you going to come out here and do your duty like I said?
CARTER [attempting sternness and failing]: You shut that door! I got to get this report in order before the meeting. I'm not comin'.
MRS. SIMPSON: Then I won't be responsible for what happens! She ain't the only one. Mrs. Shomberg is out here messin' things up, too. If you won't do your duty there'll be direct action took here! [She goes out violently.]
CARTER: That's got to come up in meeting. It certainly has. These here wives! For example, my wife's an awful quiet woman, but you s'pose she's goin' to stand it when she hears about all these others? I'd like to keep her at home.
NORA: I just wonder—
CARTER: What was you wondering, Miss Gorodna?
NORA: Well, if that's something the meeting can settle?
CARTER [doggedly]: Well, it's got to vote on it.
NORA: We did vote on Mrs. Simpson last meeting.
CARTER: Well, we got to vote on her and all the rest of 'em this time.
NORA: It didn't seem to settle Mrs. Simpson, did it?
CARTER: Well, it hadn't got so bad then. Now it's got to be settled! We got to git everything fixed up now.
[A frightful dispute is heard in numerous male voices; some speaking Italian, some Yiddish, and some broken English. This grows louder asFRANKELrushes in, throwing the door shut behind him and leaning against it, wiping his forehead.]
FRANKEL: Life ain't worth livin'! Life ain't worth livin'!
CARTER: Serves you right, Frankel!
[At the filterFRANKELpours water from the glass upon a dirty handkerchief and passes the handkerchief over his forehead.]
FRANKEL: I got to git some peace! I got to collect myself.
CARTER: That shows you ain't got no rights like you claimed. You can't control your labour element.
FRANKEL [bitterly]: I'll control 'em all right! I'll show 'em who's their master!
[A man's head with shaggy hair and ragged whiskers is thrust in at the factory door. This isPOLENSKI.]
POLENSKI [ferociously]: Are you goin' to come out here like a man?
FRANKEL: YoubetI'm comin' out there, Polenski! I'll show you who's the man here! You Hunnyacks try to browbeat me!
[As he goes out, babbling fiercely, the howls of a Roman mob are heard greeting him.]
CARTER: I don't feel no sympathy with him.
NORA: No; I should think not!
[A more distant outbreak of the mob is heard, brief but fierce, and just a moment before it ceasesMIFFLINenters, beaming. He is dressed as usual, with his umbrella and the same old magazines and newspapers under his arm.]
MIFFLIN: Everything is lovely! How do you do, Miss Gorodna! Carter, old fellow! It's a great morning, a great morning! Mr. Gibson drove me down in his car. It's wonderful to feel the inspiration it's going to be for an ex-capitalist to see this place and its harmony. My phrase for it is "harmonized industry." It will mark an epoch for him.
[GIBSONcomes in.MIFFLINgreets him.]
MIFFLIN: Ah, Mr. Gibson! You'll see a difference! You'll see a difference!
GIBSON: Yes, I do. Good morning, Miss Gorodna!
NORA [just barely looking round]: Good morning, Mr. Gibson.
MIFFLIN: I was just saying what an inspiration it's going to be for you to see what we're doing down here. [PatsCARTER'Sshoulder.] These noble fellows are teaching us intellectuals a lesson. I keep going among them; what they're doing here keeps flowing into me. You'll get it, Mr. Gibson. You'll get it, too!
[Beamingly he goes out into the factory.]
CARTER [cordially]: Take a chair, Mr. Gibson. Make yourself right at home!
GIBSON: Thanks!
[He makes a grave tour of inspection of the place, his expression noncommittal; goes about casually without making a point of it; he writes his initials in the dust on a filing case. He turns and looks atNORAthoughtfully; she has not seemed to notice him.]
Do you think I will, Miss Gorodna?
NORA [not looking up]: Do I think you will what?
GIBSON: That I'll get what Mifflin meant? That it will be an inspiration to me to see this meeting?
NORA: I don't know what will be an inspiration to you.
GIBSON: I know one thing that is—a brave woman!
[The only sign she gives is that her head bends over her work just a little more.]
Carter, do you think this meeting is going to be an inspiration to me?
CARTER: Well, Mr. Gibson, since the time you give up our rights to us, as Mr. Mifflin says, we're an inspiration to the whole world. All the time! Yes, sir; and wewouldbe, too, if we could jest git these dog-goned inequalities straightened out. We got this Frankel trouble on our hands, and them wives, and one thing and another, though they ain't botherin' me so much as my own rights. But they're goin' to git brought up in the meeting. You'll see!
GIBSON: Is the safe usually kept open?
CARTER [heartily]: Why, yes, sir; open to each and all alike.
GIBSON: Oh, yes, of course! Seems to be some business mail left over here.
CARTER: Oh, yes. But you'll find every one of 'em's been opened; we never miss opening a letter. You see they's checks in some of 'em.
GIBSON: I see. Then everything is running right along, is it, Carter?
CARTER: Oh, sure! Right along, right along!
[The uproar breaks out again.FRANKELbursts in, wiping his forehead as before. He hurries to the water filter for more water.]
FRANKEL: By golly! The bloodsuckers! They want my life! They don't get it! Hello, Mr. Gibson! Well, I am pleased to see you! Say, Mr. Gibson, lemme say something to you. Look here a minute. [He drawsGIBSONaside.]
GIBSON: What is it, Frankel?
FRANKEL [hastily, in a low voice]: Mr. Gibson, keep it under your hat, but I got a pretty good interest in this factory right now. What date I'm goin' to own it I won't say. But what I want to put up to you: How much would you ask me to manage it for me?
GIBSON: What?
FRANKEL: I wouldn't be no piker; when it comes to your salary you could pretty near set it yourself.
GIBSON: I'm afraid I've already had an offer that would keep me from accepting, Frankel.
FRANKEL: When the time comes I'll git a manager somewhere; no place like this can't run itself; I seen that much.
GIBSON: Even if I didn't have an offer, Frankel, I doubt if I'd accept yours. You know I used to have some little trouble here.
FRANKEL: You got my sympathy now! I got troubles myself here. [Hastily drinks another glass of water.] Well, where's that meeting? They're late, ain't they?
CARTER: If they are it's your fault. Them wops of yours won't hardly let a body git by out yonder.
[SALVATOREandSHOMBERGcome in from the factory, SALVATOREpausing in the doorway to shout in the direction of an audible disturbance in the distance.]
SALVATORE: Oh, shut up; you'll git your pay!
[FollowingSALVATOREcomeSIMPSONand his wife andRILEY.They all speak rather casually but not uncordially toGIBSON. MIFFLINis with them, his hand onSIMPSON'Sshoulder. The outbreak outside subsides in favour of a speech of extreme violence in a foreign language. Italian, Yiddish, or whatever it is, it seems most passionate, and by a good orator. It continues to be heard as the members of the committee take their seats at the big table.MIFFLINbeams and nods atGIBSON;and takes his seat with the committee.]
SHOMBERG [hotly, toMRS. SIMPSON]: Here, you ain't a member of this committee! Git her chair away from her there, Salvatore! She's got no right here!
MRS. SIMPSON: Oh, I haven't?
SHOMBERG: Already twice this morning I got hell from my own wife the way this woman treats her tryin' to chase her out the factory. You think you're on this committee?
MRS. SIMPSON [taking a chair triumphantly]: My husband is. I was here last time, and I'm goin' to keep on.
CARTER [referring to the speech in the factory]: My goodness! We can't do no work.
RILEY: Frankel, that's your business to shut 'em up.
FRANKEL: Talkin' ain't doin' no harm. Let 'em talk.
RILEY: Yes, I will! [Goes to the door, and roars]: Cut that out! I mean business! [Shuts the door and returns angrily to his seat.]
CARTER [rapping on the table with a ruler]: The meeting will now come to order! Minutes of the last meeting will now be read by the secretary.
MIFFLIN [toGIBSON,beaming]: You see?
NORA [rising, minute book in hand]: The meeting was called to order byChairman Carter, Monday, the—
SALVATORE: Aw, say!
FRANKEL: I object!
SIMPSON: What's the use readin' all that? It's only about what we done at the last meeting.
SALVATORE: We know that ourselves, don't we?
SHOMBERG: What'd be the use? What'd be the use?
RILEY: All we done was divide up the money.
SALVATORE: Cut it out, cut it out! Let's get to that!
CARTER: All right, then. I move—
MRS. SIMPSON [shrilly]: You can't move. The chairman can't move. If you want to move you better resign!
CARTER: Well, then, somebody ought to move—
MRS. SIMPSON: Cut out the moving. She don'thafto read 'em, does she?
CARTER: All right, then. Don't read 'em, Miss Gorodna.
SALVATORE: Well, git some kind of a move on.
CARTER: I was thinkin'—
NORA [prompting]: The next order—
CARTER: What?
NORA: The next order of business—
CARTER: Oh, yes! The next order of business—
NORA: Is reports of committees.
CARTER [in a loud, confident voice]: The next order of business is reports of committees. [Takes up some papers and goes on promptly.] The first committee I will report on is my committee. I will state it is very difficult reading, because consisting of figures written by the bookkeeper, and pretty hard to make head or tail of, but—
MRS. SIMPSON: Oh, here, say! We got important things to come up here! 'Fore we know how much we're goin' to divide amongst us we got to settle at once for all and for the last time how it's goin' to be divided and how much each family gets.
SALVATORE:Family?
CARTER AND SHOMBERG [together]: Yes—family!
RILEY: You bet—family!
CARTER: Yes, sir!
SIMPSON: Youbetwe'll settle how it's goin' to be divided!
SALVATORE: Why, even, of course; just like it has been. Ain't that the principle we struggled for all these years, comrades?
MRS. SIMPSON: Well, it's not goin' to be divided even no longer.
SALVATORE [violently]: Yes, it is!
SIMPSON AND CARTER [hotly]: It is not!
SALVATORE: You bet your life it is!
SHOMBERG: I'd sooner wring your neck, you sporty Dago!
SALVATORE: Now look here, comrade—
SHOMBERG: Comrade! Who you callin' comrade? Don't you comrade me!
MRS. SIMPSON: You dirty little Dago! You got no wife to support! Livin' a bachelor life of the worst kind, you think you'll draw down as much as my man does?
SALVATORE [fiercely]: Simpson, I don't want to hit no lady, but if—
SIMPSON [roaring]: Just you try it!
MIFFLIN [rising in his place, still beaming, and tapping on the table with his fountain pen]: Gentlemen, gentlemen! This is all healthy! It's a wholesome sign, and I like to see these little arguments. It shows you are thinking. But, of course, it has always been understood that in any such system of ideal brotherhood as we have here we, of course, cling to the equal distribution of all our labours. We—
SALVATORE [fiercely]: We? How do you git in this? Where do you git this we stuff?
FRANKEL: Yes; what you mean—we?
SALVATORE:Youain't goin' to edge in here. Your kind's done that other places. Some soft-handed guy that never done a day's work in his life but write and make speeches, works in and gits workingmen to elect him at the top and then runs 'em just the same as any capitalist.
MIFFLIN [mildly protesting]: Oh, but you mustn't—
SALVATORE [sullenly]: That's all right; I read the news from Russia!
MIFFLIN [firmly beaming]: But I was upholding your contention for an equal distribution.
SALVATORE [much surprised and mollified]: Oh, that's all right then; I didn't git you!
MIFFLIN: Right comrade! I'm always for the under dog.
SHOMBERG: Callhiman under dog! He's a loafer and don't know a trade!
RILEY: He was gettin' three and a half a day, and now he draws what I do!
MRS. SIMPSON [attackingRILEYfiercely]: Yes, and you're gettin' as much as my husband is, and your wife left you seven years ago and you livin' on the fat of the land; Steinwitz's pool parlour every night till all hours!
SHOMBERG [attacking her]: Yes, and you and your husband ain't got no children; we got four. I'd like to know what right you got to draw down what we do—you with your limousine!
CARTER: What business you got to talk, Shomberg? When here's me with my seven and the three of my married daughter—eleven in all, I got on my shoulders. Do you think you're goin' to draw down whatI'dought to?
ALL [shouting]: "Here! We got rights, ain't we?" "Where's the justice of it?" "I stand by my rights." "Nobody's goin' to git 'em away from me." "I bet I gitmyshare." "Oh, dry up!" "You make me laugh!" And so on.
RILEY [standing up and pounding the table, roaring till they are forced to listen]: You ain't any of you got the rights of it! The rights of it is—Who does the most work gets the most money. Look at me on that truck!
CARTER [pounding on the table with a ruler]: You set down, Riley! The rights of it ain't who does the most work; but I'm willin' to leave it to who does thehardestwork.
SIMPSON: No, sir! It's who does thebestwork.
CARTER: There ain't only three men in my department out there that ain't soldiering on their job. I do twice as much skilled work as any man at this table, and I do it better. [Shouts of "Yes, you do!" "Rats!" "Shut up!"] I'll leave it to Mr. Gibson; he knows good work if he don't know nothing else.
[Shouts of "Leave it to nothing!" "How'd he get in this?" "You're crazy!"]
CARTER [bawling]: Get back to business! We're running a meeting here!
FRANKEL: For goodness' sake, we ain't getting nowhere!
SALVATORE: No, and you ain't never goin' to git nowhere long as you try to work big business and privilege on me! We got to keep it like Mr. Mifflin says; it's a sacred brotherhood, everything divided equal. Let's get to business and count that money.
FRANKEL: Well, for goodness' sake, let's get some system into this meeting!
RILEY: How you goin' to get any system into it before you settle what's going to be done about Frankel's twenty-four shares?
CARTER: Twenty-four? He's got twenty-six; he got two more yesterday!
MRS. SIMPSON: He's got thirty-five; he got nine more this morning!
FRANKEL [hotly]: You bet I got thirty-five!
ALL: What! Thirty-five shares!
FRANKEL: Well, ain't I got thirty-five men workin' out there?
SIMPSON: How in thunder we goin' to settle about him holdin' all them shares?
SALVATORE: Are we goin' to let him take all that money? Thirty-five—
FRANKEL [leaping up, electrified]: How d'you expect I'm goin' to pay my men if I don't get it? Are you goin' toletme take them thirty-five shares' profits? No, I guess you ain't! You ain't got no say about it! The money's mine right now! I get it!
SIMPSON: I object!
RILEY [pounding the table]: Look at the ornery little devil! He took advantage of the poor workingmen's trustfulness, got 'em in debt to him, then went and begun buying over their shares, so they had to leave the shop because he wouldn't hire 'em to do their own work, but went and hired cheaper men. Listen to the troubletheymake among us!
SIMPSON: It's an undesirable element.
RILEY: He had no right to buy them workmen out in the first place.
SIMPSON: And on top of that we can't git no work turned out because the fourteen skilled men he's got in there have gone and started striking just like the unskilled and they tie up everything.
RILEY: I claim he hadn't no right to buy them shares.
FRANKEL: I didn't?
ALL [exceptSHOMBERG]: No, you didn't!
FRANKEL [hotly atRILEY]: You look here. S'pose you needed money bad?Ain't you got a right to sell your share?
RILEY: Sure I have!
FRANKEL: What you talkin' about, then? Ain't I got a right to buy anything you got a right to sell?
RILEY: No, you ain't, because I object to the whole system.
FRANKEL: You do! [Points toSHOMBERG.] Look there! Ask him whathesays. He's got four.
RILEY: I don't care who's got what! All I say is I object to the system, and this factory'll git burned up if them wop workmen stay here jest because he holds them shares!
SIMPSON: You're right about that, Riley!
SALVATORE: Why, you can't hear yourself think out in the shops when you might be havin' a quiet talk with a friend.
RILEY: When them wops gits to talkin' strike it sounds more like a revolution to me!
SIMPSON: Why, they're all inflamed up. They know what's what, all right.
FRANKEL: What do they know?
SALVATORE: They know you're drawing down on them shares about five or six times the wages you pay 'em. What I claim is that extra money he makes ought to be divided amongstus.
[Emphatic approval fromCARTER, SIMPSON,andRILEY."Yes sir! You bet! That's what!"]
FRANKEL: Just try it once!
SIMPSON: Them men ain't workin' for you, they're workin' for us. Ain't we the original owners?
FRANKEL: Y-a-a-a-h!
RILEY [pounding the table]: That's the stuff! We're the original owners! Any money made on them wops' wages is ours. We'll tend to business with them!
[The noise outside has increased deafeningly; there is a loud hammering on the door, which is now flung open, andPOLENSKIin patched overalls, a wrench in his hand, enters fiercely, slamming the door behind him. He begins an oration at the door.]
POLENSKI: Don't we git ahearing? We got to take direct action in this rotten factory before we even get a word in. [Shouts from the committee: "Get out of here, you wop!" "You ain't got no business here!" "This a committee meeting!"] Committee meeting, my nose! [Shakes his fist atFRANKEL.] Do you know what you're up against? You're up against the arm of labour! You monkey with labour a little more the way you have, and you'll be glad if it's only a little nitroglycerin that gits you. Hired us for two and a half, did you?
FRANKEL: My goodness, I rose you to three this morning!
POLENSKI: Yes; rose us to three! What do we care you rose us to four, to five, to six. Look what the rest you loafers here at this table is gittin'!
SALVATORE: Here, don't you bring us in this!
POLENSKI [half screaming]: I won't? Every one of you is in his class. [Points atFRANKEL.] You sit up here and call yourself a committee, dividin' up the money and runnin' this factory that belongs just as much to us men he hired as it does to you! It belongs to usmore—because we're the real workin'men! [Beats his chest.] My God! Don't the toilers' wrongsnevergit avenged? Are wealwaysgoin' to be wage slaves? We demand simple justice. We been workin' here two dollars and a half a day, now we want the wage scale abolished and double profits for each of us for every day we worked here before we found out what was goin' on, with you sittin' up here like kings in your robes, tellin' the poor man he should have only two dollars and a half a day—sittin' up here in your pomp with your feet on the neck of labour! [ToCARTER]:You, in your fine broadcloth, ridin' up and down the avenues in limousines with never a thought for the toiler! Don't think for a minute we deal with this little vampire here. You're all in the same boat, and the toiling masses will hold every single one of you just as responsible as it does him, you—you capitalists!
[Instantly upon this the door is opened enough to admit the heads of two wops very similar toPOLENSKI.]
FIRST WOP: Parasites!
SECOND WOP: Bloodsuckers!
POLENSKI: Capitalists, parasites, bloodsuckers, bourgeoisie! Do you think we expect any justice out ofyou? Do you think I come in this room ever dreaming you'd grant our demands? No! We knew you! And if we do assert our rights, what do you do? You set your hellhounds of police on us! Haven't we been agitatin' for our rights among you for days? We've got our answer from you, but you look out for ours, because as sure as there is a hell waitin' for all parasites, we'll send you there, and your factory, too! [Looks up at the clock.] My God, is that clock right? [He runs out at top speed.]
SIMPSON: They don't seem to know their place!
SHOMBERG: Them fellers think they own the earth.
RILEY: Next, they'll be thinkin' they own our factory!
CARTER [solemnly]: Well, sir, I wonder what this country is coming to!
[Here there is a muffled explosion in the sample piano, which rocks with the jar, at the same time emitting a few curls of smoke. General exclamations of horror and fright as all of the committee break for shelter.]
SHOMBERG [his voice rising over the others]: Send for the police!
SALVATORE [shouting]: Wait! We ain't divided up the money!
NORA: It's over; it hasn't done any harm!
FRANKEL [on his hands and knees under the table]: It was in that piano. [NORAgoes across to the piano.] Look out, he's probably got another one in there.
[MIFFLINhelpsNORAto take off the front of the piano, which is still mildly smoking; a wreckage of wires is seen.]
MIFFLIN [smiling]: It must have been an accident!
FRANKEL AND MRS. SIMPSON [coming out from under the table]: Accident!
MIFFLIN: Of course it's unfortunate, because it might be misconstrued.
RILEY: Yes, it might.
MIFFLIN [confidently]: Let me go talk to these new comrades!
RILEY: Comrades? Frankel's wops? Ha, ha!
SALVATORE: Aw, them ain't comrades; them's just Frankel's hired workers.
MIFFLIN: They are comrades in the best sense of the word. I am in touch with all the groups. A moment's reasoning from one they know to be sympathetic—
[He goes out into the factory.]
SALVATORE: Hey, let's get that stuff divided up. I got an engagement.
FRANKEL: Yes; let's hurry. You can't tellwhatthey got planted round here.
CARTER [rapping]: The meeting will please come to—
SALVATORE: Here, cut that out! We ain't got no time to—
SHOMBERG: No. Come to business; come to business!
NORA: The only way, comrades, to know how much we have gained since the last division is to read the bookkeeper's report.
FRANKEL: Well, for heaven's sakes, go on—read it!
CARTER: Well, I did want to a long while ago, when we first set down and begun the meeting. I says then, I report on my committee and—
VARIOUS MEMBERS: Oh, for heaven's sake! Go ahead! Cut it out!
CARTER [picking up the sheets]: On the first page is says Soomary.
RILEY: What's that mean?
MRS. SIMPSON: Oh, my goodness!
FRANKEL: Git to the figures!
CARTER: Well, here, on one side it says gross receipts—
SHOMBERG [rubbing his hands]: Ah!
CARTER: What?
SIMPSON [shouting]: Read it!
CARTER: Gross receipts $2,162.43. On the other side it says: "Cash paid out $19,461.53."
[All are puzzled.]
It didn't sound right to me, even the first time I read it. Looks like he's got the wrong words, crossed over.
FRANKEL: Why, gross receipts last month was over twenty-four thousand dollars!
SHOMBERG: Yes, and that was a fall off from the month before.
CARTER [rubbing his head]: Well, I don't pretend to understand it, but he told me all them was mostly payments on old sales anyhow.
RILEY: Read it again, read it again!
SIMPSON: Yes, let's see if we can't get what the sense of it is.
CARTER: It says "Gross receipts, $2,162.43"—that's over here. "Cash paid out, $19,461.53."
[All seem dazed.]
RILEY: What else you got there?
CARTER: As near as it seems to me, just a lot of items.
SALVATORE: Well, we must have a lot of money in the bank; what's the matter we draw that out and divide it?
RILEY: Wait a minute! What's there besides them items?
CARTER: He's got a note. "Note," he says; here it is: He says: "Bank notified us this morning we're overdrawn $59.01."
RILEY: Overdrawn?
SHOMBERG: Then we got to deposit some to our account. Who's got charge of the checks that comes in?
NORA: The bookkeeper has charge, but there aren't any checks.
CARTER: No, they ain't been any checks comin' in for some days; a week or so, or two weeks, you might say. We've looked everywhere for 'em—
FRANKEL [aghast]: You looked all through them letters?
CARTER: They ain't none left in 'em that wasn't took out a good while ago.
SALVATORE: You ain't looked through the safe, have you?
CARTER: They ain't a one in it; it's got me all puzzled up, I tell you.I was jest waitin' for the meeting to settle it.
FRANKEL: But heaven's sakes! There must be checks comin' in from new sales!
CARTER: It says here sales has fallen off. So fur this month they was only three instruments sold.
SIMPSON: But, my gosh, this is theendof the month!
CARTER: They was two sold in Council Bluffs and one in Detroit.
[General agitation and excitement.]
MRS. SIMPSON [trembling with rage and fear]: You mean to stand there and tell me we ain't goin' to git any money to-day, and my flat rent to pay to-morrow?
RILEY: Don't talk about your flat rent to me, lady! There's others of us got a few things to pay.
SHOMBERG: But, my golly, whendowe git paid?
CARTER: I can't make out from what he's got here.
SALVATORE [rapping fiercely on the table]: Hey! I got to have my money!
CARTER: Well, I got to have mine, don't I?
SIMPSON: Go on. See what else it says.
CARTER: Well, here he's got this. Here it says: "Bills payable, $17,162.48."
FRANKEL [leaping up]: Bills payable! My God, no money in bank, and we're $17,162.48 in debt!
MRS. SIMPSON [shrieking]: Who owes it?
SIMPSON: We do!