DESCHAUME. Well, if we can't have a bit of chippin' in a friendly way like!

BERTHE. Beastly things like that ain't jokes. I didn't know where to look meself; and I've sat for a sculptor, so I ain't too particular.

CHARPIN. He! He! I thought she was talkin' about that old joke of the rats.

_The men laugh together._

THeReSE. Yes, you're laughing about it still! About shutting up live rats in our desks before we came to work.

GIRARD. He! He! We didn't mean any harm.

THeReSE. You didn't mean any harm! The little apprentice was ill for a week, and Madame Dumont had a bad fall. You thought of dozens of things of that kind, like the typists who mixed up all the letters on the women's desks. When we went away to get our lunch, you came and spoilt our work and made the women lose a great part of their day's pay or work hours of overtime. We don't want any more of that. You agreed we should have a separate workshop. We'll keep it.

GIRARD. If Monsieur Feliat sticks to you, we'll have to come out on strike.

THeReSE. We don't want Monsieur Feliat to get into trouble because of us.

GIRARD. Well, what are you going to do about it?

THeReSE. We'll take your places.

CHARPIN [_bringing his fist down with a bang upon the table_] Well, I'm d.a.m.ned!

DESCHAUME [_threateningly_] If you do, we'll have to put you through it!

CONSTANCE. We'll do it!

GIRARD [_to Therese_] D'you understand now, Mademoiselle, why we socialists don't want women in the factory or in the workshop? The woman's the devil because of the low salary she has to take. She's a victim, and she likes to be a victim, and so she's the best card the employer has to play against a strike. The women are too weak, and if I might say so, too slavish--

DESCHAUME. Yes, that's the word, mate, slavish.

BERTHE [_very angry_] Look at that man there, my husband, and hear what he's saying before me, his wife, that he makes obey him like a dog. He beats me, he does. You don't trouble about my being what you call slavish when it's you that profits by it! I'd like to know who taught women to be slavish but husbands like you.

THeReSE. You've so impressed it upon women that they're inferior to men, that they've ended by believing it.

GIRARD. Well, maybe there's exceptions, but it's true in the main.

DESCHAUME. Let 'em stay at home, I says, and cook the bloomin' dinner.

BERTHE. And what'll they cook the days when you spend all your wages in booze.

GIRARD. It's the people that started you working that you ought to curse.

BERTHE. I like that! It was my husband himself that brought me to the workshop.

THeReSE. She's not the only one, eh, Vincent?

VINCENT. But I ain't sayin' nothin', I ain't. What are you turnin' on me for? I ain't sayin' nothin'.

BERTHE. We'd like nothing better than to stay at home. Why don't you support us there?

CONSTANCE. It's because you don't support us there that you've got to let us work.

DESCHAUME. We ain't going to.

BERTHE. We won't give in to you.

GIRARD. If you don't, we'll turn the job in.

THeReSE. And I tell you that we shall take your places.

DESCHAUME. Rats! You can't do it.

THeReSE. We couldn't at one time, that's true. But now we've got the machines. The machines drove the women from their homes. Up to lately one had to have a man's strength for the work; now, by just pulling a lever, a woman can do as much and more than the strongest man. The machines revenge us.

DESCHAUME. We'll smash the things.

GIRARD. She's right. By G.o.d, she's right! It's them machines has done it. If any one had told my grandfather a time would come when one chap could keep thousands of spindles running and make hundreds of pairs of stockings in a day, and yards and yards of woollen stuff, and socks and shirts and all, why grandfather'd've thought everybody'd have shirts and socks and comforters and shoes, and there'd be no more hard work and empty bellies. Curse the d.a.m.ned things! We works longer hours, and there's just as many bare feet and poor devils shivering for want of clothes. The machines were to give us everything, blast 'em! The workers are rotten fools! The d.a.m.ned machines have made nothing but hate between them that own them and them that work them. They've used up the women and even the children; and it's all to sell the things they make to n.i.g.g.e.rs or Chinamen; and maybe we'll have war about it. They've made the middle cla.s.ses rich, and they're the starvation of all of us; and after they've done all that, here are the women, our own women, want to help 'em to best us!

MOTHER BOUGNE. You're right, Girard. When I was a kid, and there was no machines--leastways, not to speak of--we was all better off. Women stayed at home, and they'd got enough to do. Why, my old grandmother used to fetch water from the well and be out pickin' up sticks before it was light of a mornin'! Yes, and women made their own bread, and did their washin', and made their bits of things themselves! Now it's machines for everythin', and they say to us: "Come into the factory and you'll earn big money." And we come, like silly kids! Why, fancy me, eight years old, taken out of the village and bunged into a spinnin'

mill! Then, when I was married, there was me in a workman's dwellin'.

You turn a tap for your water, don't fetch it; baker's bread, and your bit of dinner from the cookshop, or preserved meat out of a tin. You don't make a fire, you turn on the gas; your stockin's and togs all fetched out of a shop. There ain't no need for the women to stay at home no longer, so they cuts down the men's wages and puts us in the factories. We ain't got time to suckle our kids; and now they don't want young 'uns any more! But when you're in the factory, they make yer pay through the nose for yer gas and yer water, and baker's bread and ready-made togs; and you've got nothin' left out of yer bit of wages, and you're as poor as ever; and you're only a "hand" at machines in the damp and smoke, instead of bein' in your own house an' decent like. What are you fussin' about, Girard? Don't you see that we _can't_ go back to the old times now? A woman ain't got a house now, only a little room with nothin' but a dirty bed to sleep on! And I tell you, Girard, you've got to let us earn our livin' like that now, because it's you and the likes of you that's brought us to it.

GIRARD. Well, after all, we've got to look after our living. The women want to take it from us.

MOTHER BOUGNE. It's because they haven't got any themselves, my lad.

They've got to live as well as you, you see.

GIRARD. And supposing there isn't enough living for everybody?

MOTHER BOUGNE. The strongest'll get it and the weak 'uns'll be done in.

GIRARD. Well, we've not made the world, and we're not going to have our work taken away from us.

CONSTANCE. And we're not, either.

DESCHAUME. d.a.m.n it all, we've got to live.

BERTHE. Well, we've got to live too. The kids has got to live and we've got to live. One would think we was brute beasts.

CONSTANCE. We say just the same as you. We've not made the world, it ain't our fault.

_During the last few speeches women have appeared at the door to the right and have remained on the threshold, becoming excited by the conversation._

A WOMAN [_at the door_] It ain't our fault.

_Some men show themselves at the door at the back._