MIFFLIN: Ah, but I want to hear the workers talk!
GIBSON: Well, this is the best place for that! Some of them are waiting now just outside the door. I'll let you hear them.
[_Goes to the factory door and opens it; two workingmen come in. One is elderly, with gray moustache and beard—_CARTER. The other, FRANKEL, is a Hebraic type, eager and nervous; younger.]
GIBSON: What do you and Frankel want, Carter?
CARTER [moving his jaw from side to side, affecting to chew to gain confidence]: Well, Mr. Gibson, to come down to plain words—there ain't no two best ways o' beatin' about the bush.
GIBSON: I know that.
CARTER: The question is just up to where there ain't no two best ways out of it. The men in our department is going to walk out to the last one, and if there was any way o' stoppin' it by argument I'd tell you. We're goin' out at twelve o'clock noon to-day, the whole forty-eight of us.
GIBSON: Why?
FRANKEL: "Why," Mr. Gibson! Did you want to know why?
GIBSON: Yes, I do. You men signed an agreement with me just eleven days ago—