he trap!
GIBSON: What's the matter?
NORA [_with controlled agitation_]: It's the same old matter, Mr.
Gibson. It's those men out there that make the piano.
GIBSON [_a little sadly_]: Do they?
NORA: With their _hands_, Mr. Gibson!
GIBSON: Is there anything more, Mr. Mifflin?
MIFFLIN: You couldn't possibly imagine how much you've given me, Mr.
Gibson, in these few little answers. It is precisely what I want to get
at--the point of view! The point of view is all that is separating the
classes from the masses to-day. And I think I have yours already. Now I
want to go to the masses if you will permit me.
GIBSON: Then you might as well stay here.
MIFFLIN: Ah, but I want to hear the workers talk!
GIBSON: Well, this is the best place for that! Some of them are waiting
now just outside the door. I'll let you hear them.
[_Goes to the factory door and opens it; two workingmen come
in. One is elderly, with gray moustache and beard--_CARTER.
_The other,_ FRANKEL, _is a Hebraic type, eager and nervous;
younger._]
GIBSON: What do you and Frankel want, Carter?
CARTER [_moving his jaw from side to side, affecting to chew to gain
confidence_]: Well, Mr. Gibson, to come down to plain words--there ain't
no two best ways o' beatin' about the bush.
GIBSON: I know that.
CARTER: The question is just up to where there ain't no two best ways
out of it. The men in our department is going to walk out to the last
one, and if there was any way o' stoppin' it by argument I'd tell you.
We're goin' out at twelve o'clock noon to-day, the whole forty-eight of
us.
GIBSON: Why?
FRANKEL: "_Why_," Mr. Gibson! Did you want to know _why_?
GIBSON: Yes, I do. You men signed an agreement with me just eleven days
ago--
FRANKEL [_hotly protesting_]: But we never understood it when we signed
it. How'd we know what we was signing?
GIBSON: Can't you read, Frankel?
FRANKEL: What's reading got to do with it, when it reads all one way?
GIBSON: Didn't you understand it, Carter?
CARTER: Well--I can't say I did.
GIBSON: _Why_ can't you say it? It was plain black and white.
CARTER: Well, I was kind o' foggy about the overtime.
GIBSON: The agreement was that you were to have time and a half for
overtime. What was foggy about that?
CARTER: Well, I don't say you didn't give us what we was askin' right
_then_; but things have changed since then.
GIBSON: What's changed in eleven days?
FRANKEL [_
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