Dr. Jonathan.  To experiment.

Minnie.  You couldn’t be a scientist.  Say, every time I meet the minister I want to cry, he says to himself, “She ran away from Jesus and went to the bad.  What right has she got to be happy?” And Mrs. Pindar’s just the same.  If you leave the straight and narrow path you can’t never get back—­they keep pushing you off.

Dr. Jonathan (who has started to work at the bench).  I’ve always had my doubts about your sins, Minnie.

Minnie.  Oh, I was a sinner, all right, they’ll never get that out of their craniums.  But being a sinner isn’t a patch on being a scientist!  It’s nearly a year now since you took me in.  The time’s flown!  When I was in the Pindar Shops, and in the Wire Works at Newcastle I could always beat the other girls to the Main Street when the whistle blew, but now I’m sorry when night comes.  I can’t hardly wait to get back here —­honest to God!  Say, Dr. Jonathan, I’ve found out one thing,—­it’s being in the right place that keeps a man or a woman straight.  If you’re in the wrong place, all the religion in the world won’t help you.  If you’re doing work you like, that you’ve got an interest in, and that’s some use, you don’t need religion (she pauses).  Why, that’s religion,—­it ain’t preaching and praying and reciting creeds, it’s doing—­it’s fun.  There’s no reason why religion oughtn’t to be fun, is there?

Dr. Jonathan.  None at all!

Minnie.  Now, if we could get everybody in the right job, we wouldn’t have any more wars, I guess.

Dr. Jonathan.  The millennium always keeps a lap ahead—­we never catch up with it.

Minnie.  Well, I don’t want to catch up with it.  We wouldn’t have anything more to do.  Say, it’s nearly eleven o’clock—­would you believe it?—­and I’ve been expecting Mr. Pindar to walk in here with the newspaper.  I forgot he was in Washington.

Dr. Jonathan.  He was expected home this morning.

Minnie.  What gets me is the way he hangs around here, too, like everybody else, and yet I’ve heard him call you a Socialist, and swear he hasn’t any use for Socialists.

Dr. Jonathan.  Perhaps he’s trying to find out what a Socialist is.  Nobody seems to know.

Minnie.  He don’t know, anyway.  If it hadn’t been for you, his shops would have been closed down last winter.

Dr. Jonathan.  It looks as if they’d be closed down now, anyway.

Minnie (concerned, looking up).  Is that so?  Well, he won’t recognize the union—­he doesn’t know what century he’s living in.  But he’s human, all the same, and he’s good to the people he’s fond of, like my father, —­and he sure loves George.  He’s got George’s letters all wore out, reading them, to people. (A pause.) He don’t know where George is, does he, Dr. Jonathan?