The Gibson Upright Part 15

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 [_to_ GIBSON, _beaming_]: You see?

NORA [_rising, minute book in hand_]: The meeting was called to order by Chairman 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?

s...o...b..RG: 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't _haf_ to 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 s...o...b..RG [_together_]: Yes--family!

RILEY: You bet--family!

CARTER: Yes, sir!

SIMPSON: You _bet_ we'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!

s...o...b..RG: I'd sooner wring your neck, you sporty Dago!

SALVATORE: Now look here, comrade--

s...o...b..RG: 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: _You_ ain'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!