GIBSON:  Well, how many shares has he got?

SIMPSON:  He was claimin’ twenty-four yesterday.

MRS. SIMPSON [violently]:  He’s bought two more since last night.  Now he claims twenty-six!

FRANKEL:  Yes; and I own twenty-six!

CARTER:  That ain’t never goin’ to do!  I don’t say it’s a condition as you might say we exactly see how to handle right now, but the way it is, you certainly got us all disturbed up and hard to git at the rights of it.  You claimin’ all them shares—­

FRANKEL:  Well, my goodness, you git the work fer them shares, don’t you?  What you yelpin’ about?

CARTER:  I don’t say we don’t git the same amount o’ work, but—­

FRANKEL:  Well, how you git it, that’s my lookout, ain’t it, so it’s done?

CARTER:  But you claim you got a right to draw out twenty-six profits!

FRANKEL:  Sure I do when I furnish the labour for twenty-six.  Am I crazy?

CARTER:  But that way you’re makin’ more than any ten men put together in the whole factory!

FRANKEL:  Ain’t it just?  What you goin’ to do about it?

     [During this speech SHOMBERG has come along the street and
     stands looking over the gate.]

CARTER:  Well, so fur, we ain’t been able to see how to argue with you.  It don’t look right, and yet it’s hard to find jest what to say to you.

FRANKEL:  You bet it is!

CARTER:  ’Course, that’s one of the points that’s got to be settled at the meeting to-morrow.

FRANKEL:  You bet it’ll be settled!

MRS. SIMPSON:  If we had another kind of a chairman it’d been settled long ago, and settled right!

CARTER:  Now look here, Mrs. Simpson—­

FRANKEL [passionately]:  I got twenty-six shares, and I earned ’em, too! [To GIBSON.] Look at the trouble they make me—­to git my legal rights, let alone the rest the trouble I got! [Fiercely to CARTER and to SIMPSON]:  Yes, I had twenty-four shares yesterday and I got twenty-six to-day! and I might have another by to-night.  Don’t think I’m the only one that’s got sense enough not to go smearin’ his money all round on cheap limousines and Queen Anne dinin’-room sets at eighty-nine dollars per! [Dramatically pointing at SHOMBERG]:  There’s a man worth four shares right now!  He had three and he bought Mitchell’s out last night at Steinwitz’s pool room.  Ask him whether he thinks I got a right to my twenty-six profits or not!

SHOMBERG:  You bet your life!

MRS. SIMPSON:  I guess that Dutchman hasn’t got the say-so, has he?

FRANKEL:  No. You run the factory now, Mrs. Simpson!

CARTER:  Now look here; this ain’t very much like comrades, is it, all this arguin’?  Sunday, too!

FRANKEL:  Oh, I’m tryin’ to be friendly!

CARTER [to GIBSON]:  This buyin’ of shares and all has kind of introduced a sort of an undesirable element into the factory, you might say.  That’s kind of the bothersome side of it, and it can’t be denied we would have quite a good deal of bothersomeness if it wasn’t for our meeting.