RILEY [taking him from SIMPSON]:  Put him first!

     [They begin to jostle toward the factory door.]

FRANKEL [as they push him he waves a despairing hand at GIBSON]:  Mr.
Gibson, that was a fine trick you played on us!

THE COMMITTEE [shouting]:  You go on there!  Come on!  We got to take our medicine!

FRANKEL:  Lemme alone!  Take your hands off me!

[They jostle out, leaving NORA and GIBSON alone together. NORA has gone to the large table, sitting beside it, with her head far down between her hands.  As the noise dies away MIFFLIN comes in from the factory.]

MIFFLIN:  What wonderful spirits!  Just great, rough boys!

     [Smiles as he gets his hat, magazines, newspaper, and
     umbrella.]

Everything is working out.  Some little inevitable friction here, some little setback there.  But it all works, it all works to the one great end.  I’m sorry I wasn’t present for the end of the meeting to hear what success there was this month, but that’s a detail.  The dream has come true.  It’s here, and we’re living it! [At the door.] I’ll send you a copy of my next article, Mr. Gibson. [Modestly laughs.] They tell me the series is making a little sensation in its way.  Good morning!

[He goes out jauntily. GIBSON has never moved from his chair; he turns his head, still not rising, and looks fixedly at NORA. She slowly lifts her head, meets his eye; her head sinks again.  He rises and slowly walks over to her, looking down at her.  Then, bending still lower, she begins to cry.]

GIBSON:  Well, Nora, what was the matter with it?

NORA [not looking up]:  I don’t know.  What was?

GIBSON:  You needed a manager to do what I had been doing.

NORA:  Couldn’t we have learned?  Couldn’t one of us?

GIBSON:  One of you did—­Hill.

NORA:  But he left!

GIBSON:  Why did Hill leave?

NORA:  Other people offered him more money.

GIBSON:  Yes; he was the one man that all the rest of you depended on.  He was worth more.

NORA:  But were you worth all that you took?  You took all that the business made.

GIBSON:  Yes; and last year it was fifty thousand.

NORA:  Were you actually worth that much to it?

GIBSON:  Other men in the business think so. [Shows her a letter.] Here’s an offer from the Coles-Hibbard people, out in Cleveland, of that much salary to do for them what I did here.

NORA:  It isn’t right; you pay labour only what you have to pay.

GIBSON:  The Coles-Hibbard people offer to pay me what they’d have to, and they’re pretty hard-headed men.  The whole world pays only what it has to.

NORA:  It isn’t right!  It isn’t right!