nd 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
anticipated 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 cooeperative basis!

GIBSON: Everything? My house, too?

MIFFLIN [_beaming_]: Your house, too.

GIBSON [_amiably_]: How about your gold eyeglasses?

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 wh