NORA: So of course we sold it.
GIBSON [_checks an exclamation, merely saying_]: Did you?
NORA: Naturally we did! Twenty-two per cent. profit in that short time!
Now it just happens that we've got to buy some more ourselves, and we
can't get hold of any, even at the price that we sold it, because it
seems to have kept going up. I thought perhaps you might know where to
get some at the price you bought the other, and you mightn't mind
telling us.
GIBSON: No; I wouldn't mind telling you. I'd like to tell you.
NORA: You think there isn't any?
GIBSON: I'm sure there isn't any.
NORA: Then I'm afraid we'll have to get some back from the people we
sold to. Of course I'm anxious to show the great financial improvement
as well as other improvements. That's partly my province and Mr.
Carter's, our committee chairman, besides our regular work.
GIBSON: Mr. Mifflin tells me that you had a sort of general manager for
a while at first.
CARTER: Oh, that was Hill, the head bookkeeper. He left. He was a
traitor to the comrades.
GIBSON: Hill? He knew quite a little about the business. Why did he
leave?
CARTER: Why, that Coles-Hibbard factory went and offered him a big
salary to come over there; more than he thought he could get cooeperatin'
with us.
NORA: Hill was always a capitalist at heart. We certainly haven't needed
him!
CARTER: Oh, everybody was glad to get rid of Hill! Better off without
him--better off without him!
GIBSON: I suppose it was really an economy, his going?
NORA [_smiling_]: It resulted in economy.
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