earted country like America
would be fighting for. There's some comfort in that! I think of him as
a little boy, like when he'd be carrying me dinner pail to the shops at
noon, runnin' and leppin' and callin' out to me, and he only that high!

ASHER. As a little boy!

TIMOTHY. Yes, sir, it's when I like to think of him best. There's a
great comfort in childher, and when they grow up we lose them anyway.
But it's fair beset I'll be now, with nothing to do but think of him.

ASHER. You can thank these scoundrels who are making this labour trouble
for that.

TIMOTHY. Scoundrels, is it? Scoundrels is a hard word, Mr. Pindar.

ASHER. What else are they? Scoundrels and traitors! Don't tell me that
you've gone over to them, Timothy--that you've deserted me, too! That
you sympathize with these agitators who incite class against class!

TIMOTHY. I've heard some of them saying, sir, that if the unions gain
what they're after, there'll be no classes at all at all. And classes
is what some of us didn't expect to find in this country, but freedom.

ASHER. Freedom! They're headed for anarchy. And they haven't an ounce
of patriotism.

TIMOTHY (meaningly). Don't say that, sir. Me own boy is after dying
over there, and plenty have gone out of your own shops, as ye can see for
yourself every time you pass under the office door with some of the stars
in the flag turning to gold. And those who stays at home and works
through the night is patriots, too. The unions may be no better than
they should be, but the working man isn't wanting anyone to tell him
whether he'd be joining them or not.

ASHER. I never expected to hear you talk like this!

TIMOTHY. Nor I, sir. But it's the sons, Mr. Pindar,--the childher that
changes us. I've been thinking this morning that Bert had a union card
in his pocket when he went away,--and if he died for that kind of
liberty, it's good enough for his old father to live for. I see how
wicked it was to be old fashioned.

ASHER. Wicked?

TIMOTHY. Isn't it the old fashioned nation we're fighting, with its
kings and emperors and generals that would crush the life and freedom
out of them that need life. And why wouldn't the men have the right to
organize, sir, the way that they'd have a word to say about what they'd
be doing?

ASHER. You--you ask me to sacrifice my principles and yield to men who
are deliberately obstructing the war?

TIMOTHY. Often times principles is nothing but pride, sir. And it