The carpenters had built the council chamber, but their remuneration was three months late. (remuneration: pay, compensation, earnings) A promise of more remunerative work next year did nothing to appease them. (remunerative: paying, profitable, lucrative; appease: placate, pacify, mollify) Their advocate asked for a vote. (advocate: supporter, champion, spokesperson) The chairman invoked expediency and proposed to temporize until the accounts were ready. (expediency: convenience, practicality, usefulness; temporize: stall, delay, procrastinate)
Four hours of intransigence brought a deadlock. (intransigence: inflexibility, obstinacy, uncompromising resistance; deadlock: impasse, stalemate, standstill) Neither party wanted the dissolution of the workshop. (dissolution: disintegration, termination, breakup) Yet the chairman's ultimatum asked workers already near subsistence to accept less. (ultimatum: final demand, final warning, last demand; subsistence: sustenance, livelihood, living) The translator noticed a line about an unused ceremonial chair acquired at great monetary cost. (monetary: pecuniary, financial, money-related)
She read it aloud. The carpenter who had made it stood and offered to take it back against his invoice. Two more asked for their display cabinets. The chairman finally understood what the chamber would look like by nightfall. The accounts materialized before lunch.