BRIGNAC. What a want of public spirit!
CHEV. Bad citizenship!
LAUR [getting excited] Oh, yes! Making the poor do everything! Go and talk to the middle classes, who’ve money enough to rear children by the dozen, and who’ve fewer than the workmen. Here’s M. Chevillot: he has twenty thousand francs a year, I have two thousand. When he has ten children, then I’ll have one. That’ll be fair and square, won’t it now?
CHEV. These personalities—
LAUR. Is it true that you’ve only one son?
CHEV. It’s true. But if I had several my works would have to be sold at my death, and—
LAUR. There we are. These gentlemen are too precious careful about the fortunes they leave their own children; but when it’s a question of the workmen’s children, they think it don’t matter if there ain’t enough victuals to go round.
CHEV. It is to the interest of the workmen that my works should be prosperous.
LAUR. But you only take unmarried men.