CARTER: Oh, everybody was glad to get rid of Hill! Better off without him--better off without him!

GIBSON: I suppose it was really an economy, his going?

NORA [_smiling_]: It resulted in economy.

GIBSON: Have you made many economies?

NORA: Oh, a great many!

CARTER: Oh, my! Yes!

NORA: Economies! [_Her manner now is indulgent, amused, friendly, almost pitying._] Mr. Gibson, have you any realization of what you threw away at that place? Don't be afraid, I'll never bring you the figures. I wouldn't do such a thing to anybody!

GIBSON: Do you think I was too lavish?

NORA: We couldn't believe it at first. Just what was being thrown away on advertising, for instance. The bill you paid for the last month you were there was five thousand dollars!

CARTER: That was the figger! It's certainly a good one on you, Mr.

Gibson.

NORA: We cut that five thousand dollars down to _three hundred_! That was one item of forty-seven hundred dollars a month saved. Just one item!

CARTER [_hilariously_]: Quite some item!

NORA [_seriously and gently_]: Five thousand dollars a month to advertise a piano that sells for only a hundred and eighty-eight dollars!

CARTER: That's the facts!

NORA: Mr. Gibson, did you really ever have any idea what you were paying in commissions to agents?

GIBSON: Yes, I did.

NORA: Why, I can't believe it! Did you know that you paid them twenty per cent. on each piano? Over thirty-seven dollars!

GIBSON: Yes.

NORA: But wasn't it thrown away? I can't understand how you kept the factory going so long as you did, with such losses. Why, don't you know it amounts to hundreds of thousands of dollars a year? When we found it out we couldn't see how you made both ends meet, and we thought there must have been some mistake, and you'd never realized what advantage these agents were taking of you.

GIBSON: Yes, I knew what they got.

NORA [_triumphantly_]: We cut those commissions from thirty-seven dollars--to _twelve_! And that's just one more item among our economies.

Now do you wonder at the success we're making?

GIBSON: And your profits have been--satisfactory?

NORA: The very first month our profits were _four thousand dollars_ more than the last month you were there!

GIBSON: That's the month you say you cut out four thousand seven hundred dollars' worth of advertising.

NORA: And the next month we cut down the commissions, and the profits were _five_ thousand more!

GIBSON: But those were returns under the old commissions.

NORA: But last month, with new economies, we showed a larger profit than you had!

GIBSON: And this month?

NORA: We shan't know that until the report's read at the meeting to-morrow. I think it will be the largest profit of all.

CARTER: That bookkeeper's workin' on it to-day. Talked like he was going to cut us down two or three thousand, mebbe. [_Laughing._] That's the way he always talks.

NORA: He isn't a good influence.

CARTER: No--too gloomy, too gloomy to suit me!

GIBSON: What about the two other bookkeepers?

CARTER: The committee voted them into the packing department; and they ain't much good even there. It's a crime!

NORA: They weren't needed. Our bookkeeping is so simplified since you left!

GIBSON: It all seems to be simplified, Miss Gorodna.

NORA: Yes; and whatever problems come up, they're all settled at our meetings.

[_A sound of squabbling is heard upon the street, growing louder as the people engaging in it approach along the sidewalk._]

CARTER: There's one we got to bring up and do something about at the meetin' to-morrow.

GIBSON: What is it? [CARTER _goes up to the gate._]

NORA: It's that Mrs. Simpson; she's a great nuisance.

CARTER: Yes, it's her and Simpson and Frankel. The Simpsons moved into a flat right up in this neighbourhood. Quite some of the comrades live up round here now.

[FRANKEL _and_ MRS. SIMPSON _are heard disputing as they approach: "Well, what you goin' to do about it!" "I'll show you what we're goin' to do about it!" "You can't do nothing!" "You wait till to-morrow and see." "I got my rights, ain't I?" and so on._]

SIMPSON [_heard remonstrating_]: Now, Mamie, Mamie! Frankel, you oughtn't to talk to Mamie that way.

[GIBSON, _interested and amused, goes part way up to the hedge._ NORA _is somewhat mortified as the disputants reach the gate._ GIBSON _speaks to them._]

GIBSON: How do you do, Simpson! How do you do, Mrs. Simpson! How do you do, Frankel! Won't you come in and argue here?

MRS. SIMPSON: Wha'd you say, Mr. Gibson?

GIBSON: I said come in; come in!

SIMPSON [_uncertainly_]: Well, I don't know.