"Well, they wöan't wark fur me of their free will. Lard knows I've tried to interest 'em...."
"But how can you expect them to be interested? Your ambition means nothing to them."
"It ought to—Odiam's their home jest as it's mine."
"But don't you see that you've forced them to give up all the sweet things of life for it?—Robert his love, and Albert his poetry, and Richard his education."
"Well, I gave up all the sweet things of life, as you call 'em—and why shudn't they?"
"Because you gave those things up of your free will—they were made to give them up by force. You've no right to starve and deny other people as you have to starve and deny yourself."
"I döan't see that. Wot I can do, they can."
"But—as experience has taught you—they won't. You can see now what your slave-driving's brought you to—you've lost your slaves."
"Well, and I reckon they wurn't much loss, nuther"—the caustic was healing after all—"Robert wur a fool wot didn't know how to steal a ten-pound note, Albert wur always mooning and wasting his time, and George wur a pore thing not worth his keep. As for Richard—that Richard—who wants a stuck-up, dentical, high-nosed, genteel swell about the pläace? I reckon as I'm well shut of the whole four of 'em. They wurn't worth the food they ate, surelye!"
"That's what strikes me as so pathetic."