SCANTLEBURY. [Sinking back into torpor.] Cynic!
WILDER. It's past a joke. I don't want to go without a dividend for years if the Chairman does. We can't go on playing ducks and drakes with the Company's prosperity.
EDGAR. [Rather ashamedly.] I think we ought to consider the men.
[All but ANTHONY fidget in their seats.]
SCANTLEBURY. [With a sigh.] We must n't think of our private feelings, young man. That'll never do.
EDGAR. [Ironically.] I'm not thinking of our feelings. I'm thinking of the men's.
WILDER. As to that—we're men of business.
WANKLIN. That is the little trouble.
EDGAR. There's no necessity for pushing things so far in the face of all this suffering—it's—it's cruel.
[No one speaks, as though EDGAR had uncovered something whose existence no man prizing his self-respect could afford to recognise.]