stop . . . but they'll have another man in his place. It's a machine .
. . it goes right on. Yes, and you won't do as much as you think you
will, either . . . you'll think it over, and you won't go as far as
you mean to now.
MRS. AUSTIN. No! No!
JIM. Ah, but you can't help it . . . you're in the mill, too. It's the
class you belong to. You can talk and feel sorry . . . but you ain't
made to do things. You have to have your houses and your fine dresses
. . . and you couldn't live without them, and there'd be no use your
trying. And that means you have to live off my class . . . you have to
ride on our backs. And it don't much matter which part you ride on, as
far as I can see. You'll make your husband get a new job, maybe; but
he'll do the same thing in another way . . . only you won't find it
out. But any way he gets his money it'll come out of me and my kind.
D'ye see? I do the work . . . I'm the man underneath. I make the good
things, and you get them. [A pause.] Good luck to you.
MRS. AUSTIN. You are cruel.
JIM. Nothing of the kind. I've just told you the facts. I feel sorry
for you. I'd do anything I could for you. [Stretching out his hands.]
See what I've done! I've given you your husband's life.
MRS. AUSTIN. Oh!
JIM. Yes, just that. You've no idea how many times I swore it . . .
that I'd kill him on sight . . . that I'd strangle the life out of
him, if ever I laid eyes on him again. I used to sit when I was half
drunk, and brood over it . . . my God, I even swore it by the body of
my little boy! And I've got my gun, and you've taken his away from
him. And I don't shoot him. [A pause.] I leave him to you. [Grimly.]
You punish him.
[Exit right.]
[AUSTIN stretches out his arms to his wife. She sinks upon the table,
burying her head.]
CURTAIN
End of Project Gutenberg Etext The Second-Story Man, by Upton Sinclair
The Second-Story Man Page 3
