GUY. It isn't for my own sake.
JOHN (sceptically). No?
GUY. Oh, I've a life I'd like to live. I've a wife and I'm young and so on—but that doesn't matter. My value is as a factory owner.
EPHRAIM. Owner?
GUY. Manager, then. I believe in the system, I'm here to spread that system, to cover Lancashire with factories and make the county manufacturing centre of the world. That is my dream, sir, the dream of cheap production, and the triumph of machinery.
JOHN. You're talking very big, young man. It takes me all my time to run one factory.
GUY. I know I'm talking big. I'm seeing big, bigger than will come in your lifetime or in mine. This thing's at the beginning. It's not secure yet, but I mean to do my part to set it firmly on its legs before I die.
JOHN. There's nothing wonderful in bigness. A thousand factories are no more wonderful than one.
GUY. Oh, you've no vision.
JOHN. And maybe you've too much. The future isn't here. The present and those weavers are. And they trouble me.