Father, father, can't you have patience an' let Bertha serve it up properly? OLD BAUMERT [_Chewing._] It's two years now since I took the sacrament. I went straight after that an' sold my Sunday coat, an' we bought a good bit o' pork, an' since then never a mouthful of meat has passed my lips till to-night. JAEGER _We_ don't need no meat! The manufacturers eats it for us. It's the fat o' the land _they_ lives on. Whoever don't believe that has only to go down to Bielau and Peterswaldau. He'll see fine things there--palace upon palace, with towers and iron railings and plate-glass windows. Who do they all belong to? Why, of course, the manufacturers! No signs of bad times there! Baked and boiled and fried--horses and carriages and governesses--they've money to pay for all that and goodness knows how much more. They're swelled out to burstin' with pride and good livin'. ANSORGE Things was different in my young days. Then the manufacturers let the weaver have his share. Now they keeps everything to theirselves. An' would you like to know what's at the bottom of it all? It's that the fine folks nowadays believes neither in God nor devil. What do they care about commandments or punishments? And so they steals our last scrap o' bread, an' leaves us no chance of earnin' the barest living. For it's their fault. If our manufacturers was good men, there would be no bad times for us. JAEGER Listen, then, and I'll read you something that will please you. [_He takes one or two loose papers from his pocket._] I say, August, run and fetch another quart from the public-house. Eh, boy, do you laugh all day long? MOTHER BAUMERT No one knows why, but our August's always happy--grins an' laughs, come what may. Off with you then, quick! [_Exit AUGUST with the empty brandy-bottle._] You've got something good now, eh, father? OLD BAUMERT [_Still chewing; his spirits are rising from the effect of food and drink._] Moritz, you're the very man we want. You can read an' write. You understand the weavin' trade, and you've a heart to feel for the poor weavers' sufferin's. You should stand up for us here. JAEGER I'd do that quick enough! There's nothing I'd like better than to give the manufacturers round here a bit of a fright--dogs that they are! I'm an easy-goin' fellow, but let me once get worked up into a real rage, and I'll take Dreissiger in the one hand and Dittrich in the other, and knock their heads together till the sparks fly out o' their eyes.--If we could only arrange all to join together, we'd soon give the manufacturers a proper lesson ... we wouldn't need no King an' no Government ... all we'd have to do would be to say: We wants this and that, and we don't want the other thing. There would be a change of days then. As soon as they see that there's some pluck in us, they'll cave in. I know the rascals; they're a pack o' cowardly hounds. MOTHER BAUMERT