PRESIDENT. Then why not petition?
SCHOOLMISTRESS. It’s hard to seem like a beggar simply because you have feelings.
PRESIDENT. Proud, are you?
SCHOOLMISTRESS. There’s no law against that.
PRESIDENT. So that is why you went to the defendant Thomas?
SCHOOLMISTRESS. Yes, sir. My husband and I arranged our little finances so: the evening our salaries were paid we used to divide the money into different parts and put them by; so much for rent, so much for food, so much for clothing. We just managed to get along by calculating carefully, and more than once having to cut down expenses that seemed inevitable. The prospect of a third child upset everything. It made our existence impossible. We should have all gone hungry. And then the inspectors and the head mistresses don’t like you to have many children, especially if you nurse them yourself. The last time I was nursing I was made to hide myself—I only had ten minutes during the break at ten o’clock and again at two; and when my mother brought the baby, I had to take him into a dark closet.
PRESIDENT. That has nothing to do with it.
COUNSEL. Yes, President, it has. It ought to be known how the State, which preaches the increase of the population, treats its servants when they have children.
PRESIDENT [furiously] I can’t hear you now! [To the schoolmistress] You haven’t anything more to say?
SCHOOLMISTRESS. No, sir.