Matthew. I'm talking to your father, Mr. Guy, and we've known each other long enough to speak what's in our minds. You're a young man and the young get used to changes quickly. You find machines a natural state of things. I'll tell you how things were before the factories came and progress got a hold over everything. I'd open yon door in a morning and I'd see children playing in the fields. Where are the children now? Driven into your factory at five in the morning pretty nigh as soon as they can walk and thrashed with a cane to keep the poor little devils awake when all the nature in them's crying out for sleep. I'd go into a neighbour's cottage and I'd see a loom with a warp on it and a weaver taking pride in his work. You've taken the work away from men and given it to machines. And the worst is the machines don't care. You send out miles of cloth for every inch we used to weave, and every yard you send as full of faults as an egg of meat. It's that you've done with your factories, young sir. You've broken the weaver's spirit and you've killed the joy he used to take in honest craftsmanship. It's quality that used to count and a man _'_ud think shame to himself to produce a cloth that's full of weaving faults. There are no weavers now. They're servants of a steam engine. Guy. I'm sorry it upsets you, Mr. Butterworth, but facts are too much for you. Hand looms are played out. Matthew (_intensely convinced_). Never, while good workmanship endures. If they want the best, they'll come to the handloom weaver for it. Guy. Yes, but you see they don't want the best. Matthew. They want designs that a man conceives in joy and executes with pride. They want a cloth that shows he's taken pride in making it, and knows it's his design and not a copy of another's. Guy. We can sell a hundred pieces of the same design with as little trouble as your one. Matthew. And which _'_ull wear longest? Guy. We don't want cloth to wear, we want it to sell. Matthew (_dismissing him, sadly_). Mr. Guy, it's a hard thing to say of your father's son, but I've a fear you're a godless youth. (_To Ephraim._) What was it you wanted of me, Mr. Barlow? Ephraim (_awkwardly_). You've made it rather hard to tell you that. I didn't know you thought so badly of the factories. (_Turning._) Guy, I think, perhaps---- Guy (_curtly_). No. If you won't speak out, I will. (_Slight pause. Then Ephraim gives Guy leave by a glance._) We want you to come into the factory, Butterworth. Matthew (_startled_). I? In factory? Guy. Yes. Matthew. But---- Guy. You're the last man on our pay-sheets working out. We must have uniformity. We want you in. Matthew. You want me, Mr. Guy. I can see who _'_tis I have to thank for this. It's you that have brought the old master here to stand by while you say these things to me.