The Gibson Upright Part 7

ELLA: Yes, sir; visitors can go round just as they like to. They're glad to have you.

GIBSON: When you've been over there, Ella--you know which one is Miss Gorodna, don't you?

ELLA: Oh, yes, sir! She's one of the best in managing, Miss Gorodna.

GIBSON: You--did you--have you happened to see her?

ELLA: Yes, sir, once or twice.

GIBSON: Did she--ah--did she look overworked?

ELLA: Oh, I shouldn't say so, sir.

GIBSON: She looked well, then?

ELLA: Yes, indeed, sir! Everybody's so happy up there; I don't suppose none of 'em could look happier than she is, sir!

GIBSON: They are all happy, then?

ELLA [_laughing joyfully_]: You never see such times in your life, sir!

[_A bell rings in the house._] I'll answer the bell.

GIBSON: I've finished this, Ella.

ELLA: Yes, sir. [_She takes the tray and goes into the house._ GIBSON _opens another letter, reads it._ ELLA _returns._]

ELLA: It's Mr. Mifflin, sir.

GIBSON: All right.

[MIFFLIN, _beaming and bubbling, more radiant than in Act 1, but dressed as then except for a change of tie, comes from the house. He carries his umbrella and hat and the same old magazines and a newspaper._]

MIFFLIN: Ah, Mr. Gibson, you couldn't stay away any longer!

GIBSON: How de do! Sit down!

MIFFLIN [_effervescing, as they sit_]: It's glorious! I heard from your household you were expected back this Sunday. Now confess! You couldn't stay away! You had to come and watch it!

GIBSON: Well, I've not had to come and watch it for four months. I don't expect to watch it much, now.

MIFFLIN: You don't mean to sit there and tell me you don't know anything about it!

GIBSON: No; I don't know anything about it.

MIFFLIN: Mr. Gibson, you're an extraordinary man!

GIBSON: No, I'm not. What I did was extraordinary, but I was only an ordinary man pushed into a hole.

MIFFLIN: Oh, no; surrendering the factory was merely normal. What's remarkable is your staying away from watching the glorious work these former hireling workmen of your factory are doing, now they've won their industrial freedom. Myself, I've taken rooms near by: I started to do one article; now I have a series. And oh, the glory of watching these comrades with their economic shackles off! Haven't you heard anything of our success?

GIBSON: Only a word from my housemaid.

MIFFLIN [_delightedly, pinning him_]: Aha! There! What did she say?

"Only a word"; but what was IT?

GIBSON: It indicated--prosperity.

MIFFLIN: Ah! Immense prosperity, didn't it?

GIBSON: I suppose so. Success, at any rate.

MIFFLIN: Success? It's so magnificent that now it's inevitable for every factory of every kind all over this country.

GIBSON: All over the country?

MIFFLIN: Not only all over this country! The world must do it. Ah, they've done it in a country larger than this already! And these comrades right here are showing our country what it means. I don't begrudge you some credit for having begun it, Mr. Gibson. But you only antic.i.p.ated what all owners everywhere are going to have to do before the workmen simply _take_ the factories. They're going to take them because they have the inherent right; and they're going to take them _now_, either by direct action or by the technical owners, like yourself, seeing the handwriting on the wall.

GIBSON: What do you mean by direct action?

MIFFLIN: Why, just taking them!

GIBSON: By force?

MIFFLIN [_deprecatingly but affably_]: Oh, we hope the theoretical owners won't reduce them to such extremes. There might be a few cases that law-abiding citizens would regret; but that isn't the big thing.

Our work here is so far perhaps on the small scale, but it shows--it shows--that everything must be on a cooperative basis!

GIBSON: Everything? My house, too?

MIFFLIN [_beaming_]: Your house, too.

GIBSON [_amiably_]: How about your gold eyegla.s.ses?

MIFFLIN [_laughing_]: Those will be given me by the state. But seriously, aren't you coming to pay us a visit at the factory?

GIBSON: Since you ask me--what's the best time? I suppose the whistle doesn't blow as early as it used to.

MIFFLIN [_laughing pityingly_]: Whistle! Oh, my dear sir! This only confirms me in my old idea that the technical owners didn't have practical minds. You don't suppose we abolished you, and then didn't abolish the whistle? That whistle hurt self-respect. Really I'm sorry it's Sunday and I can't take you over there this minute to see the great changes. Talk about collectivism! That factory is the most interesting place in the world to-day. When the men were working eight long hours a day under a master it was all repression, reserve; their individualities were stifled. Now they expand!

GIBSON: You mean they talk a good deal?

MIFFLIN: I never have been in a place where there was so much talk in my life. They talk all the time; it shows they are thinking.

GIBSON: Isn't it noisy?

MIFFLIN [_delighted_]: It is! Every man has his own ideas and he expresses them. It means a freshness and originality in the work that never got into it before.

GIBSON [_worried_]: Originality? You don't mean to say they've changed any of the features of The Gibson Upright.