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Read Ebook: The Gibson Upright by Tarkington Booth Wilson Harry Leon
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Ebook has 857 lines and 19842 words, and 18 pages
GIBSON: Yes; I understood so from Miss Gorodna.
GIBSON: Would you mind staying, Miss Gorodna? Miss Gorodna knows more about one side of this factory than I do, I'm afraid, Mr. Mifflin. We may need her for reference, especially as she seems to be the ringleader of the insurgents.
MIFFLIN : Now, now! Before we come to that, Mr. Gibson, suppose we get at the origin of this interesting product. Let's see! I understand it was never your own creation, Mr. Gibson; that you inherited this factory from your father.
GIBSON: Oh, no, I didn't.
GIBSON: The piano factory I inherited from my father was about one third this size.
MIFFLIN : Nevertheless, you inherited it. We know that everything grows with the times, naturally. Let us simply state that it was a capitalistic family inheritance.
NORA : Yes!
MIFFLIN: Up to the time of your inheriting it, you, I suppose, had led the usual life of pleasure of the wealthy young man?
GIBSON: I'd been through school and college and through every department of the factory. That wasn't hard; it was a pretty run-down factory, Mr. Mifflin.
MIFFLIN: And then at your father's death the lives and fortunes, souls and bodies of all these workmen passed into your hands?
GIBSON: Not quite that; there were only forty-one workmen, and nineteen of them didn't stay when father died. They got other jobs before I could stop them.
MIFFLIN: And how many men have you now?
GIBSON: I believe there are one hundred and seventy-five on the pay roll now.
MIFFLIN: One hundred and seventy-five labourers!
GIBSON: Some of them are; some of them are orators.
MIFFLIN : Ah, I'm afraid that's hard on Miss Gorodna.
GIBSON : She's both.
GIBSON: No. The workmen themselves declined to unionize the factory.
MIFFLIN: Mr. Gibson, when your father began manufacturing "The Gibson Upright"--
GIBSON: He didn't. He made a very fine piano--and only a few of them. It was "The Gibson Upright" that saved the factory. You see, with this model we began to get on a quantity-production basis. That's why the business has grown and is growing.
MIFFLIN: You mean that "The Gibson Upright" is the reason for the present great prosperity of this plant?
GIBSON: Yes.
MIFFLIN: Now be careful, Mr. Gibson; I'm going to ask a trap question. What is the reason for "The Gibson Upright?"
GIBSON: Do you mean who designed it?
GIBSON: Certainly!
MIFFLIN : Ah, there you fell into the trap!
GIBSON: What's the matter?
NORA : It's the same old matter, Mr. Gibson. It's those men out there that make the piano.
GIBSON : Do they?
GIBSON: Is there anything more, Mr. Mifflin?
MIFFLIN: You couldn't possibly imagine how much you've given me, Mr. Gibson, in these few little answers. It is precisely what I want to get at--the point of view! The point of view is all that is separating the classes from the masses to-day. And I think I have yours already. Now I want to go to the masses if you will permit me.
GIBSON: Then you might as well stay here.
MIFFLIN: Ah, but I want to hear the workers talk!
GIBSON: Well, this is the best place for that! Some of them are waiting now just outside the door. I'll let you hear them.
GIBSON: What do you and Frankel want, Carter?
CARTER : Well, Mr. Gibson, to come down to plain words--there ain't no two best ways o' beatin' about the bush.
GIBSON: I know that.
CARTER: The question is just up to where there ain't no two best ways out of it. The men in our department is going to walk out to the last one, and if there was any way o' stoppin' it by argument I'd tell you. We're goin' out at twelve o'clock noon to-day, the whole forty-eight of us.
GIBSON: Why?
GIBSON: Yes, I do. You men signed an agreement with me just eleven days ago--
FRANKEL : But we never understood it when we signed it. How'd we know what we was signing?
GIBSON: Can't you read, Frankel?
FRANKEL: What's reading got to do with it, when it reads all one way?
GIBSON: Didn't you understand it, Carter?
CARTER: Well--I can't say I did.
CARTER: Well, I was kind o' foggy about the overtime.
GIBSON: The agreement was that you were to have time and a half for overtime. What was foggy about that?
GIBSON: What's changed in eleven days?
FRANKEL : What's changed? How about them men in the finishin' department that do piecework?
GIBSON: Well, what's changed about them?
GIBSON: We're talking about your department not understanding the agreement. What's the finishing department got to do with that?
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