: Your father wasn't crushed under the capitalistic system as mine
was. My father was an intellectual.

GIBSON: Mine was a worker. They both landed at Castle Garden, didn't
they?

NORA: What of that? Mine remained a thinker and a revolutionist; yours
became a capitalist.

GIBSON: No; he got a job--in a piano factory.

NORA: Yes, and took advantage of the capitalistic system to own the
factory.

GIBSON: Before he did own it he worked fourteen hours a day for twelve
years. That's why he owned it.

NORA: How many hours a day do you work, Mr. Gibson?

GIBSON: I _have_ worked twenty-four; sometimes fourteen, sometimes two;
usually six.

NORA: In other words, when you want to work.

GIBSON: I've learned to do things my father never learned to do, and it
commands a higher return.

NORA: You _take_ a higher return!

GIBSON: You mean I don't deserve it?

NORA: Can it be possible that you think you deserve as much as any of
these _workers_? You don't so much as touch one of these pianos that
bring you your return. I do! I work on them with my hands. Do you think
you deserve as much as I?

GIBSON: No; I don't go so far as that.

NORA: Don't talk to me as a woman! My work is pleasant enough now; but
what work did I have to do before I got this far? I worked sixteen hours
a day, and when I was only a child at that! Twelve hours I was sewing,
and four I studied. If my father hadn't known music and taught me a
little your capitalistic system would have me sewing twelve hours a day
still!

GIBSON: Yes, Nora; when we learn how to do something we get better pay
for it.

NORA: We do? Do you really think that? That we get paid for what we do?

GIBSON: Yes; that's what I think.

NORA: Then what do you get paid for? For nothing in the world but owning
this factory. You're paid because you're a capitalist!

GIBSON: Is that all?

NORA: Why, look at the state the factory's in! The discontent you saw in
those men--that's the fault of the capitalistic system! There aren't
twenty workmen in the place that are contented.

GIBSON: You're right about that; and they never will be.

NORA: Not until the system's changed. What are you going to do about it?

GIBSON [_with quiet desperation_]: They've driven me as far as they
can. If they walk out I'll walk out. I can stand it if they can.

NORA: You'd close down? Your only solution is to take the bread out of
these men's mouths?

GIBSON: If they walk out I'll walk out!