BERTHE [_very angry_] Look at that man there, my husband, and hear what he's saying before me, his wife, that he makes obey him like a dog. He beats me, he does. You don't trouble about my being what you call slavish when it's you that profits by it! I'd like to know who taught women to be slavish but husbands like you. THERESE. You've so impressed it upon women that they're inferior to men, that they've ended by believing it. GIRARD. Well, maybe there's exceptions, but it's true in the main. DESCHAUME. Let 'em stay at home, I says, and cook the bloomin' dinner. BERTHE. And what'll they cook the days when you spend all your wages in booze. GIRARD. It's the people that started you working that you ought to curse. BERTHE. I like that! It was my husband himself that brought me to the workshop. THERESE. She's not the only one, eh, Vincent? VINCENT. But I ain't sayin' nothin', I ain't. What are you turnin' on me for? I ain't sayin' nothin'. BERTHE. We'd like nothing better than to stay at home. Why don't you support us there? CONSTANCE. It's because you don't support us there that you've got to let us work. DESCHAUME. We ain't going to. BERTHE. We won't give in to you. GIRARD. If you don't, we'll turn the job in. THERESE. And I tell you that we shall take your places. DESCHAUME. Rats! You can't do it. THERESE. We couldn't at one time, that's true. But now we've got the machines. The machines drove the women from their homes. Up to lately one had to have a man's strength for the work; now, by just pulling a lever, a woman can do as much and more than the strongest man. The machines revenge us. DESCHAUME. We'll smash the things. GIRARD. She's right. By God, she's right! It's them machines has done it. If any one had told my grandfather a time would come when one chap could keep thousands of spindles running and make hundreds of pairs of stockings in a day, and yards and yards of woollen stuff, and socks and shirts and all, why grandfather'd've thought everybody'd have shirts and socks and comforters and shoes, and there'd be no more hard work and empty bellies. Curse the damned things! We works longer hours, and there's just as many bare feet and poor devils shivering for want of clothes. The machines were to give us everything, blast 'em! The workers are rotten fools! The damned machines have made nothing but hate between them that own them and them that work them. They've used up the women and even the children; and it's all to sell the things they make to niggers or Chinamen; and maybe we'll have war about it. They've made the middle classes rich, and they're the starvation of all of us; and after they've done all that, here are the women, our own women, want to help 'em to best us!