“There are my five little grandchildren, sir, who have no mother or father.”
“They would go to the workhouse; and the state would transform them into honorable, capable, and industrious citizens with even greater efficiency than you would yourself.”
“The workhouse, sir, is a very disgraceful thing for a respectable family.”
“Ah, you impale me on another spike of your religion. Its points are fixed at a sharper angle than you are willing to allow. For I would ask you, is it not enough to enrich the state with five healthy and able-bodied citizens without being called upon to maintain them at one’s own expense?”
“I beg your pardon, sir,” said the old woman, “but when you have children of your own you may not say so.”
“I do not doubt that you are right. By exercising as keenly as possible the very inadequate number of wits with which nature has seen fit to arm me, I am able to discern that the more reasonable we become the less do we order our conduct by the light of reason. As you suggest, it is extremely probable when I become a father, if I am ever called to that beatitude, I shall rise every morning from my bed to prevent my children going to the workhouse, however strenuously reason may urge that the workhouse is their natural and appointed home. And assuming, Mrs. Brown, that I am not marked out for the honor of paternity, that crowning achievement of every citizen, why then should I rise from my bed—that is, assuming that I regard the person who presumes to wind up the watch to be a meddlesome busybody, a bore, and a nuisance?”
“If you work very hard, sir, you will have no time to think such thoughts,” said the old woman.
“It is, I suppose, the satisfaction of depriving yourself of the opportunities of thinking such thoughts that brings you here every morning of the year at a quarter to eight to tidy up the garret of a starving materialist who is bleeding to death of his ideals?”
“Yes, sir, you might say partly that and partly to help to bring up my grandchildren.”
“Well, my good woman, if it is partly to bring up your grandchildren, why, may I ask, do you continue to toil on behalf of this person, when for two months past he has paid you no wage, and may I ask also why have you lent him sums of money, when you must have been aware that it was in the highest degree unlikely that it would ever be paid to you again?”