Augusta.  Asher!

Timothy.  Don’t say that, Mr. Pindar

Asher.  Why not?  What right have I to believe, after what has happened in my shops today, that he’ll come back?

Timothy.  God forbid that he should be lost, too!  There’s trouble enough—­sorrow enough—­

Asher.  Sorrow enough!  But if a man has one friend left, Timothy, it’s something.

Timothy (surprised).  Sure, I hope it’s a friend I am, sir,—­a friend this thirty years.

Asher.  We’re both old fashioned, Timothy,—­we can’t help that.

Timothy.  I’m old fashioned enough to want to be working.  And now that the strike’s on, whatever will I do?  Well, Bert is after giving his life for human liberty,—­the only thing a great-hearted country like America would be fighting for.  There’s some comfort in that!  I think of him as a little boy, like when he’d be carrying me dinner pail to the shops at noon, runnin’ and leppin’ and callin’ out to me, and he only that high!

Asher.  As a little boy!

Timothy.  Yes, sir, it’s when I like to think of him best.  There’s a great comfort in childher, and when they grow up we lose them anyway.  But it’s fair beset I’ll be now, with nothing to do but think of him.

Asher.  You can thank these scoundrels who are making this labour trouble for that.

Timothy.  Scoundrels, is it?  Scoundrels is a hard word, Mr. Pindar.

Asher.  What else are they?  Scoundrels and traitors!  Don’t tell me that you’ve gone over to them, Timothy—­that you’ve deserted me, too!  That you sympathize with these agitators who incite class against class!

Timothy.  I’ve heard some of them saying, sir, that if the unions gain what they’re after, there’ll be no classes at all at all.  And classes is what some of us didn’t expect to find in this country, but freedom.

Asher.  Freedom!  They’re headed for anarchy.  And they haven’t an ounce of patriotism.

Timothy (meaningly).  Don’t say that, sir.  Me own boy is after dying over there, and plenty have gone out of your own shops, as ye can see for yourself every time you pass under the office door with some of the stars in the flag turning to gold.  And those who stays at home and works through the night is patriots, too.  The unions may be no better than they should be, but the working man isn’t wanting anyone to tell him whether he’d be joining them or not.

Asher.  I never expected to hear you talk like this!

Timothy.  Nor I, sir.  But it’s the sons, Mr. Pindar,—­the childher that changes us.  I’ve been thinking this morning that Bert had a union card in his pocket when he went away,—­and if he died for that kind of liberty, it’s good enough for his old father to live for.  I see how wicked it was to be old fashioned.