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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 3790 ***
+
+
+
+
+MAJOR BARBARA
+
+BERNARD SHAW
+
+
+
+
+ACT I
+
+It is after dinner on a January night, in the library in
+Lady Britomart Undershaft's house in Wilton Crescent. A large and
+comfortable settee is in the middle of the room, upholstered in
+dark leather. A person sitting on it [it is vacant at present]
+would have, on his right, Lady Britomart's writing table, with
+the lady herself busy at it; a smaller writing table behind him
+on his left; the door behind him on Lady Britomart's side; and a
+window with a window seat directly on his left. Near the window
+is an armchair.
+
+Lady Britomart is a woman of fifty or thereabouts, well dressed
+and yet careless of her dress, well bred and quite reckless of
+her breeding, well mannered and yet appallingly outspoken and
+indifferent to the opinion of her interlocutory, amiable and yet
+peremptory, arbitrary, and high-tempered to the last bearable
+degree, and withal a very typical managing matron of the upper
+class, treated as a naughty child until she grew into a scolding
+mother, and finally settling down with plenty of practical
+ability and worldly experience, limited in the oddest way with
+domestic and class limitations, conceiving the universe exactly
+as if it were a large house in Wilton Crescent, though handling
+her corner of it very effectively on that assumption, and being
+quite enlightened and liberal as to the books in the library, the
+pictures on the walls, the music in the portfolios, and the
+articles in the papers.
+
+Her son, Stephen, comes in. He is a gravely correct young man
+under 25, taking himself very seriously, but still in some awe of
+his mother, from childish habit and bachelor shyness rather than
+from any weakness of character.
+
+STEPHEN. What's the matter?
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Presently, Stephen.
+
+Stephen submissively walks to the settee and sits down. He takes
+up The Speaker.
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Don't begin to read, Stephen. I shall require all
+your attention.
+
+STEPHEN. It was only while I was waiting--
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Don't make excuses, Stephen. [He puts down The
+Speaker]. Now! [She finishes her writing; rises; and comes to the
+settee]. I have not kept you waiting very long, I think.
+
+STEPHEN. Not at all, mother.
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Bring me my cushion. [He takes the cushion from
+the chair at the desk and arranges it for her as she sits down on
+the settee]. Sit down. [He sits down and fingers his tie
+nervously]. Don't fiddle with your tie, Stephen: there is nothing
+the matter with it.
+
+STEPHEN. I beg your pardon. [He fiddles with his watch chain
+instead].
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Now are you attending to me, Stephen?
+
+STEPHEN. Of course, mother.
+
+LADY BRITOMART. No: it's not of course. I want something much
+more than your everyday matter-of-course attention. I am going to
+speak to you very seriously, Stephen. I wish you would let that
+chain alone.
+
+STEPHEN [hastily relinquishing the chain] Have I done anything to
+annoy you, mother? If so, it was quite unintentional.
+
+LADY BRITOMART [astonished] Nonsense! [With some remorse] My poor
+boy, did you think I was angry with you?
+
+STEPHEN. What is it, then, mother? You are making me very uneasy.
+
+LADY BRITOMART [squaring herself at him rather aggressively]
+Stephen: may I ask how soon you intend to realize that you are a
+grown-up man, and that I am only a woman?
+
+STEPHEN [amazed] Only a--
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Don't repeat my words, please: It is a most
+aggravating habit. You must learn to face life seriously,
+Stephen. I really cannot bear the whole burden of our family
+affairs any longer. You must advise me: you must assume the
+responsibility.
+
+STEPHEN. I!
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Yes, you, of course. You were 24 last June.
+You've been at Harrow and Cambridge. You've been to India and
+Japan. You must know a lot of things now; unless you have wasted
+your time most scandalously. Well, advise me.
+
+STEPHEN [much perplexed] You know I have never interfered in the
+household--
+
+LADY BRITOMART. No: I should think not. I don't want you to order
+the dinner.
+
+STEPHEN. I mean in our family affairs.
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Well, you must interfere now; for they are
+getting quite beyond me.
+
+STEPHEN [troubled] I have thought sometimes that perhaps I ought;
+but really, mother, I know so little about them; and what I do
+know is so painful--it is so impossible to mention some things to
+you--[he stops, ashamed].
+
+LADY BRITOMART. I suppose you mean your father.
+
+STEPHEN [almost inaudibly] Yes.
+
+LADY BRITOMART. My dear: we can't go on all our lives not
+mentioning him. Of course you were quite right not to open the
+subject until I asked you to; but you are old enough now to be
+taken into my confidence, and to help me to deal with him about
+the girls.
+
+STEPHEN. But the girls are all right. They are engaged.
+
+LADY BRITOMART [complacently] Yes: I have made a very good match
+for Sarah. Charles Lomax will be a millionaire at 35. But that is
+ten years ahead; and in the meantime his trustees cannot under
+the terms of his father's will allow him more than 800 pounds a
+year.
+
+STEPHEN. But the will says also that if he increases his income
+by his own exertions, they may double the increase.
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Charles Lomax's exertions are much more likely to
+decrease his income than to increase it. Sarah will have to find
+at least another 800 pounds a year for the next ten years; and
+even then they will be as poor as church mice. And what about
+Barbara? I thought Barbara was going to make the most brilliant
+career of all of you. And what does she do? Joins the Salvation
+Army; discharges her maid; lives on a pound a week; and walks in
+one evening with a professor of Greek whom she has picked up in
+the street, and who pretends to be a Salvationist, and actually
+plays the big drum for her in public because he has fallen head
+over ears in love with her.
+
+STEPHEN. I was certainly rather taken aback when I heard they
+were engaged. Cusins is a very nice fellow, certainly: nobody
+would ever guess that he was born in Australia; but--
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Oh, Adolphus Cusins will make a very good
+husband. After all, nobody can say a word against Greek: it
+stamps a man at once as an educated gentleman. And my family,
+thank Heaven, is not a pig-headed Tory one. We are Whigs, and
+believe in liberty. Let snobbish people say what they please:
+Barbara shall marry, not the man they like, but the man I like.
+
+STEPHEN. Of course I was thinking only of his income. However, he
+is not likely to be extravagant.
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Don't be too sure of that, Stephen. I know your
+quiet, simple, refined, poetic people like Adolphus--quite
+content with the best of everything! They cost more than your
+extravagant people, who are always as mean as they are second
+rate. No: Barbara will need at least 2000 pounds a year. You see
+it means two additional households. Besides, my dear, you must
+marry soon. I don't approve of the present fashion of philandering
+bachelors and late marriages; and I am trying to arrange something
+for you.
+
+STEPHEN. It's very good of you, mother; but perhaps I had better
+arrange that for myself.
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Nonsense! you are much too young to begin
+matchmaking: you would be taken in by some pretty little nobody.
+Of course I don't mean that you are not to be consulted: you know
+that as well as I do. [Stephen closes his lips and is silent].
+Now don't sulk, Stephen.
+
+STEPHEN. I am not sulking, mother. What has all this got to do
+with--with--with my father?
+
+LADY BRITOMART. My dear Stephen: where is the money to come from?
+It is easy enough for you and the other children to live on my
+income as long as we are in the same house; but I can't keep four
+families in four separate houses. You know how poor my father is:
+he has barely seven thousand a year now; and really, if he were
+not the Earl of Stevenage, he would have to give up society. He
+can do nothing for us: he says, naturally enough, that it is
+absurd that he should be asked to provide for the children of a
+man who is rolling in money. You see, Stephen, your father must
+be fabulously wealthy, because there is always a war going on
+somewhere.
+
+STEPHEN. You need not remind me of that, mother. I have hardly
+ever opened a newspaper in my life without seeing our name in it.
+The Undershaft torpedo! The Undershaft quick firers! The
+Undershaft ten inch! the Undershaft disappearing rampart gun! the
+Undershaft submarine! and now the Undershaft aerial battleship!
+At Harrow they called me the Woolwich Infant. At Cambridge it was
+the same. A little brute at King's who was always trying to get
+up revivals, spoilt my Bible--your first birthday present to
+me--by writing under my name, "Son and heir to Undershaft and
+Lazarus, Death and Destruction Dealers: address, Christendom and
+Judea." But that was not so bad as the way I was kowtowed to
+everywhere because my father was making millions by selling
+cannons.
+
+LADY BRITOMART. It is not only the cannons, but the war loans
+that Lazarus arranges under cover of giving credit for the
+cannons. You know, Stephen, it's perfectly scandalous. Those two
+men, Andrew Undershaft and Lazarus, positively have Europe under
+their thumbs. That is why your father is able to behave as he
+does. He is above the law. Do you think Bismarck or Gladstone or
+Disraeli could have openly defied every social and moral
+obligation all their lives as your father has? They simply
+wouldn't have dared. I asked Gladstone to take it up. I asked The
+Times to take it up. I asked the Lord Chamberlain to take it up.
+But it was just like asking them to declare war on the Sultan.
+They WOULDN'T. They said they couldn't touch him. I believe they
+were afraid.
+
+STEPHEN. What could they do? He does not actually break the law.
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Not break the law! He is always breaking the law.
+He broke the law when he was born: his parents were not married.
+
+STEPHEN. Mother! Is that true?
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Of course it's true: that was why we separated.
+
+STEPHEN. He married without letting you know this!
+
+LADY BRITOMART [rather taken aback by this inference] Oh no. To
+do Andrew justice, that was not the sort of thing he did.
+Besides, you know the Undershaft motto: Unashamed. Everybody
+knew.
+
+STEPHEN. But you said that was why you separated.
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Yes, because he was not content with being a
+foundling himself: he wanted to disinherit you for another
+foundling. That was what I couldn't stand.
+
+STEPHEN [ashamed] Do you mean for--for--for--
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Don't stammer, Stephen. Speak distinctly.
+
+STEPHEN. But this is so frightful to me, mother. To have to speak
+to you about such things!
+
+LADY BRITOMART. It's not pleasant for me, either, especially if
+you are still so childish that you must make it worse by a
+display of embarrassment. It is only in the middle classes,
+Stephen, that people get into a state of dumb helpless horror
+when they find that there are wicked people in the world. In our
+class, we have to decide what is to be done with wicked people;
+and nothing should disturb our self possession. Now ask your
+question properly.
+
+STEPHEN. Mother: you have no consideration for me. For Heaven's
+sake either treat me as a child, as you always do, and tell me
+nothing at all; or tell me everything and let me take it as best
+I can.
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Treat you as a child! What do you mean? It is
+most unkind and ungrateful of you to say such a thing. You know I
+have never treated any of you as children. I have always made you
+my companions and friends, and allowed you perfect freedom to do
+and say whatever you liked, so long as you liked what I could
+approve of.
+
+STEPHEN [desperately] I daresay we have been the very imperfect
+children of a very perfect mother; but I do beg you to let me
+alone for once, and tell me about this horrible business of my
+father wanting to set me aside for another son.
+
+LADY BRITOMART [amazed] Another son! I never said anything of the
+kind. I never dreamt of such a thing. This is what comes of
+interrupting me.
+
+STEPHEN. But you said--
+
+LADY BRITOMART [cutting him short] Now be a good boy, Stephen,
+and listen to me patiently. The Undershafts are descended from a
+foundling in the parish of St. Andrew Undershaft in the city.
+That was long ago, in the reign of James the First. Well, this
+foundling was adopted by an armorer and gun-maker. In the course
+of time the foundling succeeded to the business; and from some
+notion of gratitude, or some vow or something, he adopted another
+foundling, and left the business to him. And that foundling did
+the same. Ever since that, the cannon business has always been
+left to an adopted foundling named Andrew Undershaft.
+
+STEPHEN. But did they never marry? Were there no legitimate sons?
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Oh yes: they married just as your father did; and
+they were rich enough to buy land for their own children and
+leave them well provided for. But they always adopted and trained
+some foundling to succeed them in the business; and of course
+they always quarrelled with their wives furiously over it. Your
+father was adopted in that way; and he pretends to consider
+himself bound to keep up the tradition and adopt somebody to
+leave the business to. Of course I was not going to stand that.
+There may have been some reason for it when the Undershafts could
+only marry women in their own class, whose sons were not fit to
+govern great estates. But there could be no excuse for passing
+over my son.
+
+STEPHEN [dubiously] I am afraid I should make a poor hand of
+managing a cannon foundry.
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Nonsense! you could easily get a manager and pay
+him a salary.
+
+STEPHEN. My father evidently had no great opinion of my capacity.
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Stuff, child! you were only a baby: it had
+nothing to do with your capacity. Andrew did it on principle,
+just as he did every perverse and wicked thing on principle. When
+my father remonstrated, Andrew actually told him to his face that
+history tells us of only two successful institutions: one the
+Undershaft firm, and the other the Roman Empire under the
+Antonines. That was because the Antonine emperors all adopted
+their successors. Such rubbish! The Stevenages are as good as the
+Antonines, I hope; and you are a Stevenage. But that was Andrew
+all over. There you have the man! Always clever and unanswerable
+when he was defending nonsense and wickedness: always awkward and
+sullen when he had to behave sensibly and decently!
+
+STEPHEN. Then it was on my account that your home life was broken
+up, mother. I am sorry.
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Well, dear, there were other differences. I
+really cannot bear an immoral man. I am not a Pharisee, I hope;
+and I should not have minded his merely doing wrong things: we
+are none of us perfect. But your father didn't exactly do wrong
+things: he said them and thought them: that was what was so
+dreadful. He really had a sort of religion of wrongness just as
+one doesn't mind men practising immorality so long as they own
+that they are in the wrong by preaching morality; so I couldn't
+forgive Andrew for preaching immorality while he practised
+morality. You would all have grown up without principles, without
+any knowledge of right and wrong, if he had been in the house.
+You know, my dear, your father was a very attractive man in some
+ways. Children did not dislike him; and he took advantage of it
+to put the wickedest ideas into their heads, and make them quite
+unmanageable. I did not dislike him myself: very far from it; but
+nothing can bridge over moral disagreement.
+
+STEPHEN. All this simply bewilders me, mother. People may differ
+about matters of opinion, or even about religion; but how can
+they differ about right and wrong? Right is right; and wrong is
+wrong; and if a man cannot distinguish them properly, he is
+either a fool or a rascal: that's all.
+
+LADY BRITOMART [touched] That's my own boy [she pats his cheek]!
+Your father never could answer that: he used to laugh and get out
+of it under cover of some affectionate nonsense. And now that you
+understand the situation, what do you advise me to do?
+
+STEPHEN. Well, what can you do?
+
+LADY BRITOMART. I must get the money somehow.
+
+STEPHEN. We cannot take money from him. I had rather go and live
+in some cheap place like Bedford Square or even Hampstead than
+take a farthing of his money.
+
+LADY BRITOMART. But after all, Stephen, our present income comes
+from Andrew.
+
+STEPHEN [shocked] I never knew that.
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Well, you surely didn't suppose your grandfather
+had anything to give me. The Stevenages could not do everything
+for you. We gave you social position. Andrew had to contribute
+something. He had a very good bargain, I think.
+
+STEPHEN [bitterly] We are utterly dependent on him and his
+cannons, then!
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Certainly not: the money is settled. But he
+provided it. So you see it is not a question of taking money from
+him or not: it is simply a question of how much. I don't want any
+more for myself.
+
+STEPHEN. Nor do I.
+
+LADY BRITOMART. But Sarah does; and Barbara does. That is,
+Charles Lomax and Adolphus Cusins will cost them more. So I must
+put my pride in my pocket and ask for it, I suppose. That is your
+advice, Stephen, is it not?
+
+STEPHEN. No.
+
+LADY BRITOMART [sharply] Stephen!
+
+STEPHEN. Of course if you are determined--
+
+LADY BRITOMART. I am not determined: I ask your advice; and I am
+waiting for it. I will not have all the responsibility thrown on
+my shoulders.
+
+STEPHEN [obstinately] I would die sooner than ask him for another
+penny.
+
+LADY BRITOMART [resignedly] You mean that I must ask him. Very
+well, Stephen: It shall be as you wish. You will be glad to know
+that your grandfather concurs. But he thinks I ought to ask
+Andrew to come here and see the girls. After all, he must have
+some natural affection for them.
+
+STEPHEN. Ask him here!!!
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Do not repeat my words, Stephen. Where else can I
+ask him?
+
+STEPHEN. I never expected you to ask him at all.
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Now don't tease, Stephen. Come! you see that it
+is necessary that he should pay us a visit, don't you?
+
+STEPHEN [reluctantly] I suppose so, if the girls cannot do
+without his money.
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Thank you, Stephen: I knew you would give me the
+right advice when it was properly explained to you. I have asked
+your father to come this evening. [Stephen bounds from his seat]
+Don't jump, Stephen: it fidgets me.
+
+STEPHEN [in utter consternation] Do you mean to say that my
+father is coming here to-night--that he may be here at any
+moment?
+
+LADY BRITOMART [looking at her watch] I said nine. [He gasps. She
+rises]. Ring the bell, please. [Stephen goes to the smaller
+writing table; presses a button on it; and sits at it with his
+elbows on the table and his head in his hands, outwitted and
+overwhelmed]. It is ten minutes to nine yet; and I have to
+prepare the girls. I asked Charles Lomax and Adolphus to dinner
+on purpose that they might be here. Andrew had better see them in
+case he should cherish any delusions as to their being capable of
+supporting their wives. [The butler enters: Lady Britomart goes
+behind the settee to speak to him]. Morrison: go up to the
+drawingroom and tell everybody to come down here at once.
+[Morrison withdraws. Lady Britomart turns to Stephen]. Now
+remember, Stephen, I shall need all your countenance and
+authority. [He rises and tries to recover some vestige of these
+attributes]. Give me a chair, dear. [He pushes a chair forward
+from the wall to where she stands, near the smaller writing
+table. She sits down; and he goes to the armchair, into which he
+throws himself]. I don't know how Barbara will take it. Ever
+since they made her a major in the Salvation Army she has
+developed a propensity to have her own way and order people about
+which quite cows me sometimes. It's not ladylike: I'm sure I
+don't know where she picked it up. Anyhow, Barbara shan't bully
+me; but still it's just as well that your father should be here
+before she has time to refuse to meet him or make a fuss. Don't
+look nervous, Stephen, it will only encourage Barbara to make
+difficulties. I am nervous enough, goodness knows; but I don't
+show it.
+
+Sarah and Barbara come in with their respective young men,
+Charles Lomax and Adolphus Cusins. Sarah is slender, bored, and
+mundane. Barbara is robuster, jollier, much more energetic. Sarah
+is fashionably dressed: Barbara is in Salvation Army uniform.
+Lomax, a young man about town, is like many other young men about
+town. He is affected with a frivolous sense of humor which
+plunges him at the most inopportune moments into paroxysms of
+imperfectly suppressed laughter. Cusins is a spectacled student,
+slight, thin haired, and sweet voiced, with a more complex form
+of Lomax's complaint. His sense of humor is intellectual and
+subtle, and is complicated by an appalling temper. The lifelong
+struggle of a benevolent temperament and a high conscience
+against impulses of inhuman ridicule and fierce impatience has
+set up a chronic strain which has visibly wrecked his constitution.
+He is a most implacable, determined, tenacious, intolerant person
+who by mere force of character presents himself as--and indeed
+actually is--considerate, gentle, explanatory, even mild and
+apologetic, capable possibly of murder, but not of cruelty or
+coarseness. By the operation of some instinct which is not merciful
+enough to blind him with the illusions of love, he is obstinately
+bent on marrying Barbara. Lomax likes Sarah and thinks it will be
+rather a lark to marry her. Consequently he has not attempted to
+resist Lady Britomart's arrangements to that end.
+
+All four look as if they had been having a good deal of fun in
+the drawingroom. The girls enter first, leaving the swains
+outside. Sarah comes to the settee. Barbara comes in after her
+and stops at the door.
+
+BARBARA. Are Cholly and Dolly to come in?
+
+LADY BRITOMART [forcibly] Barbara: I will not have Charles called
+Cholly: the vulgarity of it positively makes me ill.
+
+BARBARA. It's all right, mother. Cholly is quite correct
+nowadays. Are they to come in?
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Yes, if they will behave themselves.
+
+BARBARA [through the door] Come in, Dolly, and behave yourself.
+
+Barbara comes to her mother's writing table. Cusins enters
+smiling, and wanders towards Lady Britomart.
+
+SARAH [calling] Come in, Cholly. [Lomax enters, controlling his
+features very imperfectly, and places himself vaguely between
+Sarah and Barbara].
+
+LADY BRITOMART [peremptorily] Sit down, all of you. [They sit.
+Cusins crosses to the window and seats himself there. Lomax takes
+a chair. Barbara sits at the writing table and Sarah on the
+settee]. I don't in the least know what you are laughing at,
+Adolphus. I am surprised at you, though I expected nothing better
+from Charles Lomax.
+
+CUSINS [in a remarkably gentle voice] Barbara has been trying to
+teach me the West Ham Salvation March.
+
+LADY BRITOMART. I see nothing to laugh at in that; nor should you
+if you are really converted.
+
+CUSINS [sweetly] You were not present. It was really funny, I
+believe.
+
+LOMAX. Ripping.
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Be quiet, Charles. Now listen to me, children.
+Your father is coming here this evening. [General stupefaction].
+
+LOMAX [remonstrating] Oh I say!
+
+LADY BRITOMART. You are not called on to say anything, Charles.
+
+SARAH. Are you serious, mother?
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Of course I am serious. It is on your account,
+Sarah, and also on Charles's. [Silence. Charles looks painfully
+unworthy]. I hope you are not going to object, Barbara.
+
+BARBARA. I! why should I? My father has a soul to be saved like
+anybody else. He's quite welcome as far as I am concerned.
+
+LOMAX [still remonstrant] But really, don't you know! Oh I say!
+
+LADY BRITOMART [frigidly] What do you wish to convey, Charles?
+
+LOMAX. Well, you must admit that this is a bit thick.
+
+LADY BRITOMART [turning with ominous suavity to Cusins] Adolphus:
+you are a professor of Greek. Can you translate Charles Lomax's
+remarks into reputable English for us?
+
+CUSINS [cautiously] If I may say so, Lady Brit, I think Charles
+has rather happily expressed what we all feel. Homer, speaking of
+Autolycus, uses the same phrase.
+
+LOMAX [handsomely] Not that I mind, you know, if Sarah don't.
+
+LADY BRITOMART [crushingly] Thank you. Have I your permission,
+Adolphus, to invite my own husband to my own house?
+
+CUSINS [gallantly] You have my unhesitating support in everything
+you do.
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Sarah: have you nothing to say?
+
+SARAH. Do you mean that he is coming regularly to live here?
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Certainly not. The spare room is ready for him if
+he likes to stay for a day or two and see a little more of you;
+but there are limits.
+
+SARAH. Well, he can't eat us, I suppose. I don't mind.
+
+LOMAX [chuckling] I wonder how the old man will take it.
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Much as the old woman will, no doubt, Charles.
+
+LOMAX [abashed] I didn't mean--at least--
+
+LADY BRITOMART. You didn't think, Charles. You never do; and the
+result is, you never mean anything. And now please attend to me,
+children. Your father will be quite a stranger to us.
+
+LOMAX. I suppose he hasn't seen Sarah since she was a little kid.
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Not since she was a little kid, Charles, as you
+express it with that elegance of diction and refinement of
+thought that seem never to desert you. Accordingly--er-- [impatiently]
+Now I have forgotten what I was going to say. That comes of your
+provoking me to be sarcastic, Charles. Adolphus: will you kindly
+tell me where I was.
+
+CUSINS [sweetly] You were saying that as Mr Undershaft has not
+seen his children since they were babies, he will form his
+opinion of the way you have brought them up from their behavior
+to-night, and that therefore you wish us all to be particularly
+careful to conduct ourselves well, especially Charles.
+
+LOMAX. Look here: Lady Brit didn't say that.
+
+LADY BRITOMART [vehemently] I did, Charles. Adolphus's
+recollection is perfectly correct. It is most important that you
+should be good; and I do beg you for once not to pair off into
+opposite corners and giggle and whisper while I am speaking to
+your father.
+
+BARBARA. All right, mother. We'll do you credit.
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Remember, Charles, that Sarah will want to feel
+proud of you instead of ashamed of you.
+
+LOMAX. Oh I say! There's nothing to be exactly proud of, don't
+you know.
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Well, try and look as if there was.
+
+Morrison, pale and dismayed, breaks into the room in unconcealed
+disorder.
+
+MORRISON. Might I speak a word to you, my lady?
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Nonsense! Show him up.
+
+MORRISON. Yes, my lady. [He goes].
+
+LOMAX. Does Morrison know who he is?
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Of course. Morrison has always been with us.
+
+LOMAX. It must be a regular corker for him, don't you know.
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Is this a moment to get on my nerves, Charles,
+with your outrageous expressions?
+
+LOMAX. But this is something out of the ordinary, really--
+
+MORRISON [at the door] The--er--Mr Undershaft. [He retreats in
+confusion].
+
+Andrew Undershaft comes in. All rise. Lady Britomart meets him in
+the middle of the room behind the settee.
+
+Andrew is, on the surface, a stoutish, easygoing elderly man,
+with kindly patient manners, and an engaging simplicity of
+character. But he has a watchful, deliberate, waiting, listening
+face, and formidable reserves of power, both bodily and mental,
+in his capacious chest and long head. His gentleness is partly
+that of a strong man who has learnt by experience that his
+natural grip hurts ordinary people unless he handles them very
+carefully, and partly the mellowness of age and success. He is
+also a little shy in his present very delicate situation.
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Good evening, Andrew.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. How d'ye do, my dear.
+
+LADY BRITOMART. You look a good deal older.
+
+UNDERSHAFT [apologetically] I AM somewhat older. [With a touch of
+courtship] Time has stood still with you.
+
+LADY BRITOMART [promptly] Rubbish! This is your family.
+
+UNDERSHAFT [surprised] Is it so large? I am sorry to say my
+memory is failing very badly in some things. [He offers his hand
+with paternal kindness to Lomax].
+
+LOMAX [jerkily shaking his hand] Ahdedoo.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. I can see you are my eldest. I am very glad to meet
+you again, my boy.
+
+LOMAX [remonstrating] No but look here don't you know--[Overcome]
+Oh I say!
+
+LADY BRITOMART [recovering from momentary speechlessness] Andrew:
+do you mean to say that you don't remember how many children you
+have?
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Well, I am afraid I--. They have grown so much--er.
+Am I making any ridiculous mistake? I may as well confess: I
+recollect only one son. But so many things have happened since,
+of course--er--
+
+LADY BRITOMART [decisively] Andrew: you are talking nonsense. Of
+course you have only one son.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Perhaps you will be good enough to introduce me, my
+dear.
+
+LADY BRITOMART. That is Charles Lomax, who is engaged to Sarah.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. My dear sir, I beg your pardon.
+
+LOMAX. Not at all. Delighted, I assure you.
+
+LADY BRITOMART. This is Stephen.
+
+UNDERSHAFT [bowing] Happy to make your acquaintance, Mr Stephen.
+Then [going to Cusins] you must be my son. [Taking Cusins' hands
+in his] How are you, my young friend? [To Lady Britomart] He is
+very like you, my love.
+
+CUSINS. You flatter me, Mr Undershaft. My name is Cusins: engaged
+to Barbara. [Very explicitly] That is Major Barbara Undershaft,
+of the Salvation Army. That is Sarah, your second daughter. This
+is Stephen Undershaft, your son.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. My dear Stephen, I beg your pardon.
+
+STEPHEN. Not at all.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Mr Cusins: I am much indebted to you for explaining
+so precisely. [Turning to Sarah] Barbara, my dear--
+
+SARAH [prompting him] Sarah.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Sarah, of course. [They shake hands. He goes over to
+Barbara] Barbara--I am right this time, I hope.
+
+BARBARA. Quite right. [They shake hands].
+
+LADY BRITOMART [resuming command] Sit down, all of you. Sit down,
+Andrew. [She comes forward and sits on the settle. Cusins also
+brings his chair forward on her left. Barbara and Stephen resume
+their seats. Lomax gives his chair to Sarah and goes for
+another].
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Thank you, my love.
+
+LOMAX [conversationally, as he brings a chair forward between the
+writing table and the settee, and offers it to Undershaft] Takes
+you some time to find out exactly where you are, don't it?
+
+UNDERSHAFT [accepting the chair] That is not what embarrasses me,
+Mr Lomax. My difficulty is that if I play the part of a father, I
+shall produce the effect of an intrusive stranger; and if I play
+the part of a discreet stranger, I may appear a callous father.
+
+LADY BRITOMART. There is no need for you to play any part at all,
+Andrew. You had much better be sincere and natural.
+
+UNDERSHAFT [submissively] Yes, my dear: I daresay that will be
+best. [Making himself comfortable] Well, here I am. Now what can
+I do for you all?
+
+LADY BRITOMART. You need not do anything, Andrew. You are one of
+the family. You can sit with us and enjoy yourself.
+
+Lomax's too long suppressed mirth explodes in agonized neighings.
+
+LADY BRITOMART [outraged] Charles Lomax: if you can behave
+yourself, behave yourself. If not, leave the room.
+
+LOMAX. I'm awfully sorry, Lady Brit; but really, you know, upon
+my soul! [He sits on the settee between Lady Britomart and
+Undershaft, quite overcome].
+
+BARBARA. Why don't you laugh if you want to, Cholly? It's good
+for your inside.
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Barbara: you have had the education of a lady.
+Please let your father see that; and don't talk like a street
+girl.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Never mind me, my dear. As you know, I am not a
+gentleman; and I was never educated.
+
+LOMAX [encouragingly] Nobody'd know it, I assure you. You look
+all right, you know.
+
+CUSINS. Let me advise you to study Greek, Mr Undershaft. Greek
+scholars are privileged men. Few of them know Greek; and none of
+them know anything else; but their position is unchallengeable.
+Other languages are the qualifications of waiters and commercial
+travellers: Greek is to a man of position what the hallmark is to
+silver.
+
+BARBARA. Dolly: don't be insincere. Cholly: fetch your concertina
+and play something for us.
+
+LOMAX [doubtfully to Undershaft] Perhaps that sort of thing isn't
+in your line, eh?
+
+UNDERSHAFT. I am particularly fond of music.
+
+LOMAX [delighted] Are you? Then I'll get it. [He   goes upstairs
+for the instrument].
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Do you play, Barbara?
+
+BARBARA. Only the tambourine. But Cholly's teaching me the
+concertina.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Is Cholly also a member of the Salvation Army?
+
+BARBARA. No: he says it's bad form to be a dissenter. But I don't
+despair of Cholly. I made him come yesterday to a meeting at the
+dock gates, and take the collection in his hat.
+
+LADY BRITOMART. It is not my doing, Andrew. Barbara is old enough
+to take her own way. She has no father to advise her.
+
+BARBARA. Oh yes she has. There are no orphans in the Salvation
+Army.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Your father there has a great many children and
+plenty of experience, eh?
+
+BARBARA [looking at him with quick interest and nodding] Just so.
+How did you come to understand that? [Lomax is heard at the door
+trying the concertina].
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Come in, Charles. Play us something at once.
+
+LOMAX. Righto! [He sits down in his former place, and preludes].
+
+UNDERSHAFT. One moment, Mr Lomax. I am rather interested in the
+Salvation Army. Its motto might be my own: Blood and Fire.
+
+LOMAX [shocked] But not your sort of blood and fire, you know.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. My sort of blood cleanses: my sort of fire purifies.
+
+BARBARA. So do ours. Come down to-morrow to my shelter--the West
+Ham shelter--and see what we're doing. We're going to march to a
+great meeting in the Assembly Hall at Mile End. Come and see the
+shelter and then march with us: it will do you a lot of good. Can
+you play anything?
+
+UNDERSHAFT. In my youth I earned pennies, and even shillings
+occasionally, in the streets and in public house parlors by my
+natural talent for stepdancing. Later on, I became a member of
+the Undershaft orchestral society, and performed passably on the
+tenor trombone.
+
+LOMAX [scandalized] Oh I say!
+
+BARBARA. Many a sinner has played himself into heaven on the
+trombone, thanks to the Army.
+
+LOMAX [to Barbara, still rather shocked] Yes; but what about the
+cannon business, don't you know? [To Undershaft] Getting into
+heaven is not exactly in your line, is it?
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Charles!!!
+
+LOMAX. Well; but it stands to reason, don't it? The cannon
+business may be necessary and all that: we can't get on without
+cannons; but it isn't right, you know. On the other hand, there
+may be a certain amount of tosh about the Salvation Army--I
+belong to the Established Church myself--but still you can't deny
+that it's religion; and you can't go against religion, can you?
+At least unless you're downright immoral, don't you know.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. You hardly appreciate my position, Mr Lomax--
+
+LOMAX [hastily] I'm not saying anything against you personally,
+you know.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Quite so, quite so. But consider for a moment. Here I
+am, a manufacturer of mutilation and murder. I find myself in a
+specially amiable humor just now because, this morning, down at
+the foundry, we blew twenty-seven dummy soldiers into fragments
+with a gun which formerly destroyed only thirteen.
+
+LOMAX [leniently] Well, the more destructive war becomes, the
+sooner it will be abolished, eh?
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Not at all. The more destructive war becomes the more
+fascinating we find it. No, Mr Lomax, I am obliged to you for
+making the usual excuse for my trade; but I am not ashamed of it.
+I am not one of those men who keep their morals and their
+business in watertight compartments. All the spare money my trade
+rivals spend on hospitals, cathedrals and other receptacles for
+conscience money, I devote to experiments and researches in
+improved methods of destroying life and property. I have always
+done so; and I always shall. Therefore your Christmas card
+moralities of peace on earth and goodwill among men are of no use
+to me. Your Christianity, which enjoins you to resist not evil,
+and to turn the other cheek, would make me a bankrupt. My
+morality--my religion--must have a place for cannons and
+torpedoes in it.
+
+STEPHEN [coldly--almost sullenly] You speak as if there were half
+a dozen moralities and religions to choose from, instead of one
+true morality and one true religion.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. For me there is only one true morality; but it might
+not fit you, as you do not manufacture aerial battleships. There
+is only one true morality for every man; but every man has not
+the same true morality.
+
+LOMAX [overtaxed] Would you mind saying that again? I didn't
+quite follow it.
+
+CUSINS. It's quite simple. As Euripides says, one man's meat is
+another man's poison morally as well as physically.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Precisely.
+
+LOMAX. Oh, that. Yes, yes, yes. True. True.
+
+STEPHEN. In other words, some men are honest and some are
+scoundrels.
+
+BARBARA. Bosh. There are no scoundrels.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Indeed? Are there any good men?
+
+BARBARA. No. Not one. There are neither good men nor scoundrels:
+there are just children of one Father; and the sooner they stop
+calling one another names the better. You needn't talk to me: I
+know them. I've had scores of them through my hands: scoundrels,
+criminals, infidels, philanthropists, missionaries, county
+councillors, all sorts. They're all just the same sort of sinner;
+and there's the same salvation ready for them all.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. May I ask have you ever saved a maker of cannons?
+
+BARBARA. No. Will you let me try?
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Well, I will make a bargain with you. If I go to see
+you to-morrow in your Salvation Shelter, will you come the day
+after to see me in my cannon works?
+
+BARBARA. Take care. It may end in your giving up the cannons for
+the sake of the Salvation Army.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Are you sure it will not end in your giving up the
+Salvation Army for the sake of the cannons?
+
+BARBARA. I will take my chance of that.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. And I will take my chance of the other. [They shake
+hands on it]. Where is your shelter?
+
+BARBARA. In West Ham. At the sign of the cross. Ask anybody in
+Canning Town. Where are your works?
+
+UNDERSHAFT. In Perivale St Andrews. At the sign of the sword. Ask
+anybody in Europe.
+
+LOMAX. Hadn't I better play something?
+
+BARBARA. Yes. Give us Onward, Christian Soldiers.
+
+LOMAX. Well, that's rather a strong order to begin with, don't
+you know. Suppose I sing Thou'rt passing hence, my brother. It's
+much the same tune.
+
+BARBARA. It's too melancholy. You get saved, Cholly; and you'll
+pass hence, my brother, without making such a fuss about it.
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Really, Barbara, you go on as if religion were a
+pleasant subject. Do have some sense of propriety.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. I do not find it an unpleasant subject, my dear. It
+is the only one that capable people really care for.
+
+LADY BRITOMART [looking at her watch] Well, if you are determined
+to have it, I insist on having it in a proper and respectable
+way. Charles: ring for prayers. [General amazement. Stephen rises
+in dismay].
+
+LOMAX [rising] Oh I say!
+
+UNDERSHAFT [rising] I am afraid I must be going.
+
+LADY BRITOMART. You cannot go now, Andrew: it would be most
+improper. Sit down. What will the servants think?
+
+UNDERSHAFT. My dear: I have conscientious scruples. May I suggest
+a compromise? If Barbara will conduct a little service in the
+drawingroom, with Mr Lomax as organist, I will attend it
+willingly. I will even take part, if a trombone can be procured.
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Don't mock, Andrew.
+
+UNDERSHAFT [shocked--to Barbara] You don't think I am mocking, my
+love, I hope.
+
+BARBARA. No, of course not; and it wouldn't matter if you were:
+half the Army came to their first meeting for a lark. [Rising]
+Come along. Come, Dolly. Come, Cholly. [She goes out with
+Undershaft, who opens the door for her. Cusins rises].
+
+LADY BRITOMART. I will not be disobeyed by everybody. Adolphus:
+sit down. Charles: you may go. You are not fit for prayers: you
+cannot keep your countenance.
+
+LOMAX. Oh I say! [He goes out].
+
+LADY BRITOMART [continuing] But you, Adolphus, can behave
+yourself if you choose to. I insist on your staying.
+
+CUSINS. My dear Lady Brit: there are things in the family prayer
+book that I couldn't bear to hear you say.
+
+LADY BRITOMART. What things, pray?
+
+CUSINS. Well, you would have to say before all the servants that
+we have done things we ought not to have done, and left undone
+things we ought to have done, and that there is no health in us.
+I cannot bear to hear you doing yourself such an unjustice, and
+Barbara such an injustice. As for myself, I flatly deny it: I
+have done my best. I shouldn't dare to marry Barbara--I couldn't
+look you in the face--if it were true. So I must go to the
+drawingroom.
+
+LADY BRITOMART [offended] Well, go. [He starts for the door]. And
+remember this, Adolphus [he turns to listen]: I have a very
+strong suspicion that you went to the Salvation Army to worship
+Barbara and nothing else. And I quite appreciate the very clever
+way in which you systematically humbug me. I have found you out.
+Take care Barbara doesn't. That's all.
+
+CUSINS [with unruffled sweetness] Don't tell on me. [He goes
+out].
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Sarah: if you want to go, go. Anything's better
+than to sit there as if you wished you were a thousand miles
+away.
+
+SARAH [languidly] Very well, mamma. [She goes].
+
+Lady Britomart, with a sudden flounce, gives way to a little gust
+of tears.
+
+STEPHEN [going to her] Mother: what's the matter?
+
+LADY BRITOMART [swishing away her tears with her handkerchief]
+Nothing. Foolishness. You can go with him, too, if you like, and
+leave me with the servants.
+
+STEPHEN. Oh, you mustn't think that, mother. I--I don't like him.
+
+LADY BRITOMART. The others do. That is the injustice of a woman's
+lot. A woman has to bring up her children; and that means to
+restrain them, to deny them things they want, to set them tasks,
+to punish them when they do wrong, to do all the unpleasant
+things. And then the father, who has nothing to do but pet them
+and spoil them, comes in when all her work is done and steals
+their affection from her.
+
+STEPHEN. He has not stolen our affection from you. It is only
+curiosity.
+
+LADY BRITOMART [violently] I won't be consoled, Stephen. There is
+nothing the matter with me. [She rises and goes towards the
+door].
+
+STEPHEN. Where are you going, mother?
+
+LADY BRITOMART. To the drawingroom, of course. [She goes out.
+Onward, Christian Soldiers, on the concertina, with tambourine
+accompaniment, is heard when the door opens]. Are you coming,
+Stephen?
+
+STEPHEN. No. Certainly not. [She goes. He sits down on the
+settee, with compressed lips and an expression of strong
+dislike].
+
+
+
+ACT II
+
+The yard of the West Ham shelter of the Salvation Army is a cold
+place on a January morning. The building itself, an old
+warehouse, is newly whitewashed. Its gabled end projects into the
+yard in the middle, with a door on the ground floor, and another
+in the loft above it without any balcony or ladder, but with a
+pulley rigged over it for hoisting sacks. Those who come from
+this central gable end into the yard have the gateway leading to
+the street on their left, with a stone horse-trough just beyond
+it, and, on the right, a penthouse shielding a table from the
+weather. There are forms at the table; and on them are seated a
+man and a woman, both much down on their luck, finishing a meal
+of bread [one thick slice each, with margarine and golden syrup]
+and diluted milk.
+
+The man, a workman out of employment, is young, agile, a talker,
+a poser, sharp enough to be capable of anything in reason except
+honesty or altruistic considerations of any kind. The woman is a
+commonplace old bundle of poverty and hard-worn humanity. She
+looks sixty and probably is forty-five. If they were rich people,
+gloved and muffed and well wrapped up in furs and overcoats, they
+would be numbed and miserable; for it is a grindingly cold, raw,
+January day; and a glance at the background of grimy warehouses
+and leaden sky visible over the whitewashed walls of the yard
+would drive any idle rich person straight to the Mediterranean.
+But these two, being no more troubled with visions of the
+Mediterranean than of the moon, and  being compelled to keep more
+of their clothes in the pawnshop, and less on their persons, in
+winter than in summer, are not depressed by the cold: rather are
+they stung into vivacity, to which their meal has just now given
+an almost jolly turn. The man takes a pull at his mug, and then
+gets up and moves about the yard with his hands deep in his
+pockets, occasionally breaking into a stepdance.
+
+THE WOMAN. Feel better otter your meal, sir?
+
+THE MAN. No. Call that a meal! Good enough for you, props; but
+wot is it to me, an intelligent workin man.
+
+THE WOMAN. Workin man! Wot are you?
+
+THE MAN. Painter.
+
+THE WOMAN [sceptically] Yus, I dessay.
+
+THE MAN. Yus, you dessay! I know. Every loafer that can't do
+nothink calls isself a painter. Well, I'm a real painter:
+grainer, finisher, thirty-eight bob a week when I can get it.
+
+THE WOMAN. Then why don't you go and get it?
+
+THE MAN. I'll tell you why. Fust: I'm intelligent--fffff! it's
+rotten cold here [he dances a step or two]--yes: intelligent
+beyond the station o life into which it has pleased the
+capitalists to call me; and they don't like a man that sees
+through em. Second, an intelligent bein needs a doo share of
+appiness; so I drink somethink cruel when I get the chawnce.
+Third, I stand by my class and do as little as I can so's to
+leave arf the job for me fellow workers. Fourth, I'm fly enough
+to know wots inside the law and wots outside it; and inside it I
+do as the capitalists do: pinch wot I can lay me ands on. In a
+proper state of society I am sober, industrious and honest: in
+Rome, so to speak, I do as the Romans do. Wots the consequence?
+When trade is bad--and it's rotten bad just now--and the
+employers az to sack arf their men, they generally start on me.
+
+THE WOMAN. What's your name?
+
+THE MAN. Price. Bronterre O'Brien Price. Usually called Snobby
+Price, for short.
+
+THE WOMAN. Snobby's a carpenter, ain't it? You said you was a
+painter.
+
+PRICE. Not that kind of snob, but the genteel sort. I'm too
+uppish, owing to my intelligence, and my father being a Chartist
+and a reading, thinking man: a stationer, too. I'm none of your
+common hewers of wood and drawers of water; and don't you forget
+it. [He returns to his seat at the table, and takes up his mug].
+Wots YOUR name?
+
+THE WOMAN. Rummy Mitchens, sir.
+
+PRICE [quaffing the remains of his milk to her] Your elth, Miss
+Mitchens.
+
+RUMMY [correcting him] Missis Mitchens.
+
+PRICE. Wot! Oh Rummy, Rummy! Respectable married woman, Rummy,
+gittin rescued by the Salvation Army by pretendin to be a bad un.
+Same old game!
+
+RUMMY. What am I to do? I can't starve. Them Salvation lasses is
+dear good girls; but the better you are, the worse they likes to
+think you were before they rescued you. Why shouldn't they av a
+bit o credit, poor loves? They're worn to rags by their work. And
+where would they get the money to rescue us if we was to let on
+we're no worse than other people? You know what ladies and
+gentlemen are.
+
+PRICE. Thievin swine! Wish I ad their job, Rummy, all the same.
+Wot does Rummy stand for? Pet name props?
+
+RUMMY. Short for Romola.
+
+PRICE. For wot!?
+
+RUMMY. Romola. It was out of a new book. Somebody me mother
+wanted me to grow up like.
+
+PRICE. We're companions in misfortune, Rummy. Both on us got
+names that nobody cawnt pronounce. Consequently I'm Snobby and
+you're Rummy because Bill and Sally wasn't good enough for our
+parents. Such is life!
+
+RUMMY. Who saved you, Mr. Price? Was it Major Barbara?
+
+PRICE. No: I come here on my own. I'm goin to be Bronterre
+O'Brien Price, the converted painter. I know wot they like. I'll
+tell em how I blasphemed and gambled and wopped my poor old
+mother--
+
+RUMMY [shocked] Used you to beat your mother?
+
+PRICE. Not likely. She used to beat me. No matter: you come and
+listen to the converted painter, and you'll hear how she was a
+pious woman that taught me me prayers at er knee, an how I used
+to come home drunk and drag her out o bed be er snow white airs,
+an lam into er with the poker.
+
+RUMMY. That's what's so unfair to us women. Your confessions is
+just as big lies as ours: you don't tell what you really done no
+more than us; but you men can tell your lies right out at the
+meetins and be made much of for it; while the sort o confessions
+we az to make az to be wispered to one lady at a time. It ain't
+right, spite of all their piety.
+
+PRICE. Right! Do you spose the Army'd be allowed if it went and
+did right? Not much. It combs our air and makes us good little
+blokes to be robbed and put upon. But I'll play the game as good
+as any of em. I'll see somebody struck by lightnin, or hear a
+voice sayin "Snobby Price: where will you spend eternity?" I'll
+ave a time of it, I tell you.
+
+RUMMY. You won't be let drink, though.
+
+PRICE. I'll take it out in gorspellin, then. I don't want to
+drink if I can get fun enough any other way.
+
+Jenny Hill, a pale, overwrought, pretty Salvation lass of 18,
+comes in through the yard gate, leading Peter Shirley, a half
+hardened, half worn-out elderly man, weak with hunger.
+
+JENNY [supporting him] Come! pluck up. I'll get you something to
+eat. You'll be all right then.
+
+PRICE [rising and hurrying officiously to take the old man off
+Jenny's hands] Poor old man! Cheer up, brother: you'll find rest
+and peace and appiness ere. Hurry up with the food, miss: e's
+fair done. [Jenny hurries into the shelter]. Ere, buck up, daddy!
+She's fetchin y'a thick slice o breadn treacle, an a mug o
+skyblue. [He seats him at the corner of the table].
+
+RUMMY [gaily] Keep up your old art! Never say die!
+
+SHIRLEY. I'm not an old man. I'm ony 46. I'm as good as ever I
+was. The grey patch come in my hair before I was thirty. All it
+wants is three pennorth o hair dye: am I to be turned on the
+streets to starve for it? Holy God! I've worked ten to twelve
+hours a day since I was thirteen, and paid my way all through;
+and now am I to be thrown into the gutter and my job given to a
+young man that can do it no better than me because I've black
+hair that goes white at the first change?
+
+PRICE [cheerfully] No good jawrin about it. You're ony a
+jumped-up, jerked-off, orspittle-turned-out incurable of an ole
+workin man: who cares about you? Eh? Make the thievin swine give
+you a meal: they've stole many a one from you. Get a bit o your
+own back. [Jenny returns with the usual meal]. There you are,
+brother. Awsk a blessin an tuck that into you.
+
+SHIRLEY [looking at it ravenously but not touching it, and crying
+like a child] I never took anything before.
+
+JENNY [petting him] Come, come! the Lord sends it to you: he
+wasn't above taking bread from his friends; and why should you
+be? Besides, when we find you a job you can pay us for it if you
+like.
+
+SHIRLEY [eagerly] Yes, yes: that's true. I can pay you back: it's
+only a loan. [Shivering] Oh Lord! oh Lord! [He turns to the table
+and attacks the meal ravenously].
+
+JENNY. Well, Rummy, are you more comfortable now?
+
+RUMMY. God bless you, lovey! You've fed my body and saved my
+soul, haven't you? [Jenny, touched, kisses her] Sit down and rest
+a bit: you must be ready to drop.
+
+JENNY. I've been going hard since morning. But there's more work
+than we can do. I mustn't stop.
+
+RUMMY. Try a prayer for just two minutes. You'll work all the
+better after.
+
+JENNY [her eyes lighting up] Oh isn't it wonderful how a few
+minutes prayer revives you! I was quite lightheaded at twelve
+o'clock, I was so tired; but Major Barbara just sent me to pray
+for five minutes; and I was able to go on as if I had only just
+begun. [To Price] Did you have a piece of bread?
+
+PAIGE [with unction] Yes, miss; but I've got the piece that I
+value more; and that's the peace that passeth hall hannerstennin.
+
+RUMMY [fervently] Glory Hallelujah!
+
+Bill Walker, a rough customer of about 25, appears at the yard
+gate and looks malevolently at Jenny.
+
+JENNY. That makes me so happy. When you say that, I feel wicked
+for loitering here. I must get to work again.
+
+She is hurrying to the shelter, when the new-comer moves quickly
+up to the door and intercepts her. His manner is so threatening
+that she retreats as he comes at her truculently, driving her
+down the yard.
+
+BILL. I know you. You're the one that took away my girl. You're
+the one that set er agen me. Well, I'm goin to av er out. Not
+that I care a curse for her or you: see? But I'll let er know;
+and I'll let you know. I'm goin to give er a doin that'll teach
+er to cut away from me. Now in with you and tell er to come out
+afore I come in and kick er out. Tell er Bill Walker wants er.
+She'll know what that means; and if she keeps me waitin it'll be
+worse. You stop to jaw back at me; and I'll start on you: d'ye
+hear? There's your way. In you go. [He takes her by the arm and
+slings her towards the door of the shelter. She falls on her hand
+and knee. Rummy helps her up again].
+
+PRICE [rising, and venturing irresolutely towards Bill]. Easy
+there, mate. She ain't doin you no arm.
+
+BILL. Who are you callin mate? [Standing over him threateningly].
+You're goin to stand up for her, are you? Put up your ands.
+
+RUMMY [running indignantly to him to scold him]. Oh, you great
+brute--  [He instantly swings his left hand back against her
+face. She screams and reels back to the trough, where she
+sits down, covering her bruised face with her hands and rocking
+and moaning with pain].
+
+JENNY [going to her]. Oh God forgive you! How could you strike an
+old woman like that?
+
+BILL [seizing her by the hair so violently that she also screams,
+and tearing her away from the old woman]. You Gawd forgive me
+again and I'll Gawd forgive you one on the jaw that'll stop you
+prayin for a week. [Holding her and turning fiercely on Price].
+Av you anything to say agen it? Eh?
+
+PRICE [intimidated]. No, matey: she ain't anything to do with me.
+
+BILL. Good job for you! I'd put two meals into you and fight you
+with one finger after, you starved cur. [To Jenny] Now are you
+goin to fetch out Mog Habbijam; or am I to knock your face off
+you and fetch her myself?
+
+JENNY [writhing in his grasp] Oh please someone go in and tell
+Major Barbara--[she screams again as he wrenches her head down;
+and Price and Rummy, flee into the shelter].
+
+BILL. You want to go in and tell your Major of me, do you?
+
+JENNY. Oh please don't drag my hair. Let me go.
+
+BILL. Do you or don't you? [She stifles a scream]. Yes or no.
+
+JENNY. God give me strength--
+
+BILL [striking her with his fist in the face] Go and show her
+that, and tell her if she wants one like it to come and interfere
+with me. [Jenny, crying with pain, goes into the shed. He goes to
+the form and addresses the old man]. Here: finish your mess; and
+get out o my way.
+
+SHIRLEY [springing up and facing him fiercely, with the mug in
+his hand] You take a liberty with me, and I'll smash you over the
+face with the mug and cut your eye out. Ain't you satisfied--young
+whelps like you--with takin the bread out o the mouths of your
+elders that have brought you up and slaved for you, but you
+must come shovin and cheekin and bullyin in here, where the bread
+o charity is sickenin in our stummicks?
+
+BILL [contemptuously, but backing a little] Wot good are you, you
+old palsy mug? Wot good are you?
+
+SHIRLEY. As good as you and better. I'll do a day's work agen you
+or any fat young soaker of your age. Go and take my job at
+Horrockses, where I worked for ten year. They want young men
+there: they can't afford to keep men over forty-five. They're
+very sorry--give you a character and happy to help you to get
+anything suited to your years--sure a steady man won't be long
+out of a job. Well, let em try you. They'll find the differ. What
+do you know? Not as much as how to beeyave yourself--layin your
+dirty fist across the mouth of a respectable woman!
+
+BILL. Don't provoke me to lay it acrost yours: d'ye hear?
+
+SHIRLEY [with blighting contempt] Yes: you like an old man to
+hit, don't you, when you've finished with the women. I ain't seen
+you hit a young one yet.
+
+BILL [stung] You lie, you old soupkitchener, you. There was a
+young man here. Did I offer to hit him or did I not?
+
+SHIRLEY. Was he starvin or was he not? Was he a man or only a
+crosseyed thief an a loafer? Would you hit my son-in-law's
+brother?
+
+BILL. Who's he?
+
+SHIRLEY. Todger Fairmile o Balls Pond. Him that won 20 pounds off
+the Japanese wrastler at the music hall by standin out 17 minutes
+4 seconds agen him.
+
+BILL [sullenly] I'm no music hall wrastler. Can he box?
+
+SHIRLEY. Yes: an you can't.
+
+BILL. Wot! I can't, can't I? Wot's that you say [threatening
+him]?
+
+SHIRLEY [not budging an inch] Will you box Todger Fairmile if I
+put him on to you? Say the word.
+
+BILL. [subsiding with a slouch] I'll stand up to any man alive,
+if he was ten Todger Fairmiles. But I don't set up to be a
+perfessional.
+
+SHIRLEY [looking down on him with unfathomable disdain] YOU box!
+Slap an old woman with the back o your hand! You hadn't even the
+sense to hit her where a magistrate couldn't see the mark of it,
+you silly young lump of conceit and ignorance. Hit a girl in the
+jaw and ony make her cry! If Todger Fairmile'd done it, she
+wouldn't a got up inside o ten minutes, no more than you would if
+he got on to you. Yah! I'd set about you myself if I had a week's
+feedin in me instead o two months starvation. [He returns to the
+table to finish his meal].
+
+BILL [following him and stooping over him to drive the taunt in]
+You lie! you have the bread and treacle in you that you come here
+to beg.
+
+SHIRLEY [bursting into tears] Oh God! it's true: I'm only an old
+pauper on the scrap heap. [Furiously] But you'll come to it
+yourself; and then you'll know. You'll come to it sooner than a
+teetotaller like me, fillin yourself with gin at this hour o the
+mornin!
+
+BILL. I'm no gin drinker, you old liar; but when I want to give
+my girl a bloomin good idin I like to av a bit o devil in me:
+see? An here I am, talkin to a rotten old blighter like you sted
+o givin her wot for. [Working himself into a rage] I'm goin in
+there to fetch her out. [He makes vengefully for the shelter
+door].
+
+SHIRLEY. You're goin to the station on a stretcher, more likely;
+and they'll take the gin and the devil out of you there when they
+get you inside. You mind what you're about: the major here is the
+Earl o Stevenage's granddaughter.
+
+BILL [checked] Garn!
+
+SHIRLEY. You'll see.
+
+BILL [his resolution oozing] Well, I ain't done nothin to er.
+
+SHIRLEY. Spose she said you did! who'd believe you?
+
+BILL [very uneasy, skulking back to the corner of the penthouse]
+Gawd! There's no jastice in this country. To think wot them
+people can do! I'm as good as er.
+
+SHIRLEY. Tell her so. It's just what a fool like you would do.
+
+Barbara, brisk and businesslike, comes from the shelter with a
+note book, and addresses herself to Shirley. Bill, cowed, sits
+down in the corner on a form, and turns his back on them.
+
+BARBARA. Good morning.
+
+SHIRLEY [standing up and taking off his hat] Good morning, miss.
+
+BARBARA. Sit down: make yourself at home. [He hesitates; but she
+puts a friendly hand on his shoulder and makes him obey]. Now
+then! since you've made friends with us, we want to know all
+about you. Names and addresses and trades.
+
+SHIRLEY. Peter Shirley. Fitter. Chucked out two months ago
+because I was too old.
+
+BARBARA [not at all surprised] You'd pass still. Why didn't you
+dye your hair?
+
+SHIRLEY. I did. Me age come out at a coroner's inquest on me
+daughter.
+
+BARBARA. Steady?
+
+SHIRLEY. Teetotaller. Never out of a job before. Good worker. And
+sent to the knockers like an old horse!
+
+BARBARA. No matter: if you did your part God will do his.
+
+SHIRLEY [suddenly stubborn] My religion's no concern of anybody
+but myself.
+
+BARBARA [guessing] I know. Secularist?
+
+SHIRLEY [hotly] Did I offer to deny it?
+
+BARBARA. Why should you? My own father's a Secularist, I think.
+Our Father--yours and mine--fulfils himself in many ways; and I
+daresay he knew what he was about when he made a Secularist of
+you. So buck up, Peter! we can always find a job for a steady man
+like you. [Shirley, disarmed, touches his hat. She turns from him
+to Bill]. What's your name?
+
+BILL [insolently] Wot's that to you?
+
+BARBARA [calmly making a note] Afraid to give his name. Any
+trade?
+
+BILL. Who's afraid to give his name? [Doggedly, with a sense of
+heroically defying the House of Lords in the person of Lord
+Stevenage] If you want to bring a charge agen me, bring it. [She
+waits, unruffled]. My name's Bill Walker.
+
+BARBARA [as if the name were familiar: trying to remember how]
+Bill Walker? [Recollecting] Oh, I know: you're the man that Jenny
+Hill was praying for inside just now. [She enters his name in her
+note book].
+
+BILL. Who's Jenny Hill? And what call has she to pray for me?
+
+BARBARA. I don't know. Perhaps it was you that cut her lip.
+
+BILL [defiantly] Yes, it was me that cut her lip. I ain't afraid
+o you.
+
+BARBARA. How could you be, since you're not afraid of God? You're
+a brave man, Mr. Walker. It takes some pluck to do our work here;
+but none of us dare lift our hand against a girl like that, for
+fear of her father in heaven.
+
+BILL [sullenly] I want none o your cantin jaw. I suppose you
+think I come here to beg from you, like this damaged lot here.
+Not me. I don't want your bread and scrape and catlap. I don't
+believe in your Gawd, no more than you do yourself.
+
+BARBARA [sunnily apologetic and ladylike, as on a new footing
+with him] Oh, I beg your pardon for putting your name down, Mr.
+Walker. I didn't understand. I'll strike it out.
+
+BILL [taking this as a slight, and deeply wounded by it] Eah! you
+let my name alone. Ain't it good enough to be in your book?
+
+BARBARA [considering] Well, you see, there's no use putting down
+your name unless I can do something for you, is there? What's
+your trade?
+
+BILL [still smarting] That's no concern o yours.
+
+BARBARA. Just so. [very businesslike] I'll put you down as
+[writing] the man who--struck--poor little Jenny Hill--in the
+mouth.
+
+BILL [rising threateningly] See here. I've ad enough o this.
+
+BARBARA [quite sunny and fearless] What did you come to us for?
+
+BILL. I come for my girl, see? I come to take her out o this and
+to break er jaws for her.
+
+BARBARA [complacently] You see I was right about your trade.
+[Bill, on the point of retorting furiously, finds himself, to his
+great shame and terror, in danger of crying instead. He sits down
+again suddenly]. What's her name?
+
+BILL [dogged] Er name's Mog Abbijam: thats wot her name is.
+
+BARBARA. Oh, she's gone to Canning Town, to our barracks there.
+
+BILL [fortified by his resentment of Mog's perfidy] is she?
+[Vindictively] Then I'm goin to Kennintahn arter her. [He crosses
+to the gate; hesitates; finally comes back at Barbara]. Are you
+lyin to me to get shut o me?
+
+BARBARA. I don't want to get shut of you. I want to keep you here
+and save your soul. You'd better stay: you're going to have a bad
+time today, Bill.
+
+BILL. Who's goin to give it to me? You, props.
+
+BARBARA. Someone you don't believe in. But you'll be glad
+afterwards.
+
+BILL [slinking off] I'll go to Kennintahn to be out o the reach o
+your tongue. [Suddenly turning on her with intense malice] And if
+I don't find Mog there, I'll come back and do two years for you,
+selp me Gawd if I don't!
+
+BARBARA [a shade kindlier, if possible] It's no use, Bill. She's
+got another bloke.
+
+BILL. Wot!
+
+BARBARA. One of her own converts. He fell in love with her when
+he saw her with her soul saved, and her face clean, and her hair
+washed.
+
+BILL [surprised] Wottud she wash it for, the carroty slut? It's
+red.
+
+BARBARA. It's quite lovely now, because she wears a new look in
+her eyes with it. It's a pity you're too late. The new bloke has
+put your nose out of joint, Bill.
+
+BILL. I'll put his nose out o joint for him. Not that I care a
+curse for her, mind that. But I'll teach her to drop me as if I
+was dirt. And I'll teach him to meddle with my Judy. Wots iz
+bleedin name?
+
+BARBARA. Sergeant Todger Fairmile.
+
+SHIRLEY [rising with grim joy] I'll go with him, miss. I want to
+see them two meet. I'll take him to the infirmary when it's over.
+
+BILL [to Shirley, with undissembled misgiving] Is that im you was
+speakin on?
+
+SHIRLEY. That's him.
+
+BILL. Im that wrastled in the music all?
+
+SHIRLEY. The competitions at the National Sportin Club was worth
+nigh a hundred a year to him. He's gev em up now for religion; so
+he's a bit fresh for want of the exercise he was accustomed to.
+He'll be glad to see you. Come along.
+
+BILL. Wots is weight?
+
+SHIRLEY. Thirteen four. [Bill's last hope expires].
+
+BARBARA. Go and talk to him, Bill. He'll convert you.
+
+SHIRLEY. He'll convert your head into a mashed potato.
+
+BILL [sullenly] I ain't afraid of him. I ain't afraid of
+ennybody. But he can lick me. She's done me. [He sits down
+moodily on the edge of the horse trough].
+
+SHIRLEY. You ain't goin. I thought not. [He resumes his seat].
+
+BARBARA [calling] Jenny!
+
+JENNY [appearing at the shelter door with a plaster on the corner
+of her mouth] Yes, Major.
+
+BARBARA. Send Rummy Mitchens out to clear away here.
+
+JENNY. I think she's afraid.
+
+BARBARA [her resemblance to her mother flashing out for a moment]
+Nonsense! she must do as she's told.
+
+JENNY [calling into the shelter] Rummy: the Major says you must
+come.
+
+Jenny comes to Barbara, purposely keeping on the side next Bill,
+lest he should suppose that she shrank from him or bore malice.
+
+BARBARA. Poor little Jenny! Are you tired? [Looking at the
+wounded cheek] Does it hurt?
+
+JENNY. No: it's all right now. It was nothing.
+
+BARBARA [critically] It was as hard as he could hit, I expect.
+Poor Bill! You don't feel angry with him, do you?
+
+JENNY. Oh no, no, no: indeed I don't, Major, bless his poor
+heart! [Barbara kisses her; and she runs away merrily into the
+shelter. Bill writhes with an agonizing return of his new and
+alarming symptoms, but says nothing. Rummy Mitchens comes from
+the shelter].
+
+BARBARA [going to meet Rummy] Now Rummy, bustle. Take in those
+mugs and plates to be washed; and throw the crumbs about for the
+birds.
+
+Rummy takes the three plates and mugs; but Shirley takes back his
+mug from her, as there it still come milk left in it.
+
+RUMMY. There ain't any crumbs. This ain't a time to waste good
+bread on birds.
+
+PRICE [appearing at the shelter door] Gentleman come to see the
+shelter, Major. Says he's your father.
+
+BARBARA. All right. Coming. [Snobby goes back into the shelter,
+followed by Barbara].
+
+RUMMY [stealing across to Bill and addressing him in a subdued
+voice, but with intense conviction] I'd av the lor of you, you
+flat eared pignosed potwalloper, if she'd let me. You're no
+gentleman, to hit a lady in the face. [Bill, with greater things
+moving in him, takes no notice].
+
+SHIRLEY [following her] Here! in with you and don't get yourself
+into more trouble by talking.
+
+RUMMY [with hauteur] I ain't ad the pleasure o being hintroduced
+to you, as I can remember. [She goes into the shelter with the
+plates].
+
+BILL [savagely] Don't you talk to me, d'ye hear. You lea me
+alone, or I'll do you a mischief. I'm not dirt under your feet,
+anyway.
+
+SHIRLEY [calmly] Don't you be afeerd. You ain't such prime
+company that you need expect to be sought after. [He is about to
+go into the shelter when Barbara comes out, with Undershaft on
+her right].
+
+BARBARA. Oh there you are, Mr Shirley! [Between them] This is my
+father: I told you he was a Secularist, didn't I? Perhaps you'll
+be able to comfort one another.
+
+UNDERSHAFT [startled] A Secularist! Not the least in the world:
+on the contrary, a confirmed mystic.
+
+BARBARA. Sorry, I'm sure. By the way, papa, what is your
+religion--in case I have to introduce you again?
+
+UNDERSHAFT. My religion? Well, my dear, I am a Millionaire. That
+is my religion.
+
+BARBARA. Then I'm afraid you and Mr Shirley wont be able to
+comfort one another after all. You're not a Millionaire, are you,
+Peter?
+
+SHIRLEY. No; and proud of it.
+
+UNDERSHAFT [gravely] Poverty, my friend, is not a thing to be
+proud of.
+
+SHIRLEY [angrily] Who made your millions for you? Me and my like.
+What's kep us poor? Keepin you rich. I wouldn't have your
+conscience, not for all your income.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. I wouldn't have your income, not for all your
+conscience, Mr Shirley. [He goes to the penthouse and sits down
+on a form].
+
+BARBARA [stopping Shirley adroitly as he is about to retort] You
+wouldn't think he was my father, would you, Peter? Will you go
+into the shelter and lend the lasses a hand for a while: we're
+worked off our feet.
+
+SHIRLEY [bitterly] Yes: I'm in their debt for a meal, ain't I?
+
+BARBARA. Oh, not because you're in their debt; but for love of
+them, Peter, for love of them. [He cannot understand, and is
+rather scandalized]. There! Don't stare at me. In with you; and
+give that conscience of yours a holiday [bustling him into the
+shelter].
+
+SHIRLEY [as he goes in] Ah! it's a pity you never was trained to
+use your reason, miss. You'd have been a very taking lecturer on
+Secularism.
+
+Barbara turns to her father.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Never mind me, my dear. Go about your work; and let
+me watch it for a while.
+
+BARBARA. All right.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. For instance, what's the matter with that out-patient
+over there?
+
+BARBARA [looking at Bill, whose attitude has never changed, and
+whose expression of brooding wrath has deepened] Oh, we shall
+cure him in no time. Just watch. [She goes over to Bill and
+waits. He glances up at her and casts his eyes down again,
+uneasy, but grimmer than ever]. It would be nice to just stamp on
+Mog Habbijam's face, wouldn't it, Bill?
+
+BILL [starting up from the trough in consternation] It's a lie: I
+never said so. [She shakes her head]. Who told you wot was in my
+mind?
+
+BARBARA. Only your new friend.
+
+BILL. Wot new friend?
+
+BARBARA. The devil, Bill. When he gets round people they get
+miserable, just like you.
+
+HILL [with a heartbreaking attempt at devil-may-care
+cheerfulness] I ain't miserable. [He sits down again, and
+stretches his legs in an attempt to seem indifferent].
+
+BARBARA. Well, if you're happy, why don't you look happy, as we
+do?
+
+BILL [his legs curling back in spite of him] I'm appy enough, I
+tell you. Why don't you lea me alown? Wot av I done to you? I
+ain't smashed your face, av I?
+
+BARBARA [softly: wooing his soul] It's not me that's getting at
+you, Bill.
+
+BILL. Who else is it?
+
+BARBARA. Somebody that doesn't intend you to smash women's faces,
+I suppose. Somebody or something that wants to make a man of you.
+
+BILL [blustering] Make a man o ME! Ain't I a man? eh? ain't I a
+man? Who sez I'm not a man?
+
+BARBARA. There's a man in you somewhere, I suppose. But why did
+he let you hit poor little Jenny Hill? That wasn't very manly of
+him, was it?
+
+BILL [tormented] Av done with it, I tell you. Chock it. I'm sick
+of your Jenny Ill and er silly little face.
+
+BARBARA. Then why do you keep thinking about it? Why does it keep
+coming up against you in your mind? You're not getting converted,
+are you?
+
+BILL [with conviction] Not ME. Not likely. Not arf.
+
+BARBARA. That's right, Bill. Hold out against it. Put out your
+strength. Don't let's get you cheap. Todger Fairmile said he
+wrestled for three nights against his Salvation harder than he
+ever wrestled with the Jap at the music hall. He gave in to the
+Jap when his arm was going to break. But he didn't give in to his
+salvation until his heart was going to break. Perhaps you'll
+escape that. You haven't any heart, have you?
+
+BILL. Wot dye mean? Wy ain't I got a art the same as ennybody
+else?
+
+BARBARA. A man with a heart wouldn't have bashed poor little
+Jenny's face, would he?
+
+BILL [almost crying] Ow, will you lea me alown? Av I ever offered
+to meddle with you, that you come noggin and provowkin me lawk
+this? [He writhes convulsively from his eyes to his toes].
+
+BARBARA [with a steady soothing hand on his arm and a gentle
+voice that never lets him go] It's your soul that's hurting you,
+Bill, and not me. We've been through it all ourselves. Come with
+us, Bill. [He looks wildly round]. To brave manhood on earth and
+eternal glory in heaven. [He is on the point of breaking down].
+Come. [A drum is heard in the shelter; and Bill, with a gasp,
+escapes from the spell as Barbara turns quickly. Adolphus enters
+from the shelter with a big drum]. Oh! there you are, Dolly. Let
+me introduce a new friend of mine, Mr Bill Walker. This is my
+bloke, Bill: Mr Cusins. [Cusins salutes with his drumstick].
+
+BILL. Goin to marry im?
+
+BARBARA. Yes.
+
+BILL [fervently] Gawd elp im! Gawd elp im!
+
+BARBARA. Why? Do you think he won't be happy with me?
+
+BILL. I've only ad to stand it for a mornin: e'll av to stand it
+for a lifetime.
+
+CUSINS. That is a frightful reflection, Mr Walker. But I can't
+tear myself away from her.
+
+BILL. Well, I can. [To Barbara] Eah! do you know where I'm goin
+to, and wot I'm goin to do?
+
+BARBARA. Yes: you're going to heaven; and you're coming back here
+before the week's out to tell me so.
+
+BILL. You lie. I'm goin to Kennintahn, to spit in Todger
+Fairmile's eye. I bashed Jenny Ill's face; and now I'll get me
+own face bashed and come back and show it to er. E'll it me
+ardern I it er. That'll make us square. [To Adolphus] Is that
+fair or is it not? You're a genlmn: you oughter know.
+
+BARBARA. Two black eyes wont make one white one, Bill.
+
+BILL. I didn't ast you. Cawn't you never keep your mahth shut? I
+ast the genlmn.
+
+CUSINS [reflectively] Yes: I think you're right, Mr Walker. Yes:
+I should do it. It's curious: it's exactly what an ancient Greek
+would have done.
+
+BARBARA. But what good will it do?
+
+CUSINS. Well, it will give Mr Fairmile some exercise; and it will
+satisfy Mr Walker's soul.
+
+BILL. Rot! there ain't no sach a thing as a soul. Ah kin you tell
+wether I've a soul or not? You never seen it.
+
+BARBARA. I've seen it hurting you when you went against it.
+
+BILL [with compressed aggravation] If you was my girl and took
+the word out o me mahth lawk thet, I'd give you suthink you'd
+feel urtin, so I would. [To Adolphus] You take my tip, mate. Stop
+er jawr; or you'll die afore your time. [With intense expression]
+Wore aht: thets wot you'll be: wore aht. [He goes away through
+the gate].
+
+CUSINS [looking after him] I wonder!
+
+BARBARA. Dolly! [indignant, in her mother's manner].
+
+CUSINS. Yes, my dear, it's very wearing to be in love with you.
+If it lasts, I quite think I shall die young.
+
+BARBARA. Should you mind?
+
+CUSINS. Not at all. [He is suddenly softened, and kisses her over
+the drum, evidently not for the first time, as people cannot kiss
+over a big drum without practice. Undershaft coughs].
+
+BARBARA. It's all right, papa, we've not forgotten you. Dolly:
+explain the place to papa: I haven't time. [She goes busily into
+the shelter].
+
+Undershaft and Adolpbus now have the yard to themselves.
+Undershaft, seated on a form, and still keenly attentive, looks
+hard at Adolphus. Adolphus looks hard at him.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. I fancy you guess something of what is in my mind, Mr
+Cusins. [Cusins flourishes his drumsticks as if in the art of
+beating a lively rataplan, but makes no sound]. Exactly so. But
+suppose Barbara finds you out!
+
+CUSINS. You know, I do not admit that I am imposing on Barbara. I
+am quite genuinely interested in the views of the Salvation Army.
+The fact is, I am a sort of collector of religions; and the
+curious thing is that I find I can believe them all. By the way,
+have you any religion?
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Yes.
+
+CUSINS. Anything out of the common?
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Only that there are two things necessary to
+Salvation.
+
+CUSINS [disappointed, but polite] Ah, the Church Catechism.
+Charles Lomax also belongs to the Established Church.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. The two things are--
+
+CUSINS. Baptism and--
+
+UNDERSHAFT. No. Money and gunpowder.
+
+CUSINS [surprised, but interested] That is the general opinion of
+our governing classes. The novelty is in hearing any man confess
+it.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Just so.
+
+CUSINS. Excuse me: is there any place in your religion for honor,
+justice, truth, love, mercy and so forth?
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Yes: they are the graces and luxuries of a rich,
+strong, and safe life.
+
+CUSINS. Suppose one is forced to choose between them and money or
+gunpowder?
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Choose money and gunpowder; for without enough of
+both you cannot afford the others.
+
+CUSINS. That is your religion?
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Yes.
+
+The cadence of this reply makes a full close in the conversation.
+Cusins twists his face dubiously and contemplates Undershaft.
+Undershaft contemplates him.
+
+CUSINS. Barbara won't stand that. You will have to choose between
+your religion and Barbara.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. So will you, my friend. She will find out that that
+drum of yours is hollow.
+
+CUSINS. Father Undershaft: you are mistaken: I am a sincere
+Salvationist. You do not understand the Salvation Army. It is the
+army of joy, of love, of courage: it has banished the fear and
+remorse and despair of the old hellridden evangelical sects: it
+marches to fight the devil with trumpet and drum, with music and
+dancing, with banner and palm, as becomes a sally from heaven by
+its happy garrison. It picks the waster out of the public house
+and makes a man of him: it finds a worm wriggling in a back
+kitchen, and lo! a woman! Men and women of rank too, sons and
+daughters of the Highest. It takes the poor professor of Greek,
+the most artificial and self-suppressed of human creatures, from
+his meal of roots, and lets loose the rhapsodist in him; reveals
+the true worship of Dionysos to him; sends him down the public
+street drumming dithyrambs [he plays a thundering flourish on the
+drum].
+
+UNDERSHAFT. You will alarm the shelter.
+
+CUSINS. Oh, they are accustomed to these sudden ecstasies of
+piety. However, if the drum worries you-- [he pockets the
+drumsticks; unhooks the drum; and stands it on the ground
+opposite the gateway].
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Thank you.
+
+CUSINS. You remember what Euripides says about your money and
+gunpowder?
+
+UNDERSHAFT. No.
+
+CUSINS [declaiming]
+
+                      One and another
+In money and guns may outpass his brother;
+And men in their millions float and flow
+And seethe with a million hopes as leaven;
+And they win their will; or they miss their will;
+And their hopes are dead or are pined for still:
+    But whoe'er can know
+    As the long days go
+That to live is happy, has found his heaven.
+
+My translation: what do you think of it?
+
+UNDERSHAFT. I think, my friend, that if you wish to know,
+as the long days go, that to live is happy, you must first
+acquire money enough for a decent life, and power enough to be
+your own master.
+
+CUSINS. You are damnably discouraging. [He resumes his
+declamation].
+
+      Is it so hard a thing to see
+      That the spirit of God--whate'er it be--
+The Law that abides and changes not, ages long,
+The Eternal and Nature-born: these things be strong.
+What else is Wisdom? What of Man's endeavor,
+Or God's high grace so lovely and so great?
+To stand from fear set free? to breathe and wait?
+To hold a hand uplifted over Fate?
+And shall not Barbara be loved for ever?
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Euripides mentions Barbara, does he?
+
+CUSINS. It is a fair translation. The word means Loveliness.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. May I ask--as Barbara's father--how much a year she
+is to be loved for ever on?
+
+CUSINS. As Barbara's father, that is more your affair than mine.
+I can feed her by teaching Greek: that is about all.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Do you consider it a good match for her?
+
+CUSINS [with polite obstinacy] Mr Undershaft: I am in many ways a
+weak, timid, ineffectual person; and my health is far from
+satisfactory. But whenever I feel that I must have anything, I
+get it, sooner or later. I feel that way about Barbara. I don't
+like marriage: I feel intensely afraid of it; and I don't know
+what I shall do with Barbara or what she will do with me. But I
+feel that I and nobody else must marry her. Please regard that as
+settled.--Not that I wish to be arbitrary; but why should I waste
+your time in discussing what is inevitable?
+
+UNDERSHAFT. You mean that you will stick at nothing not even the
+conversion of the Salvation Army to the worship of Dionysos.
+
+CUSINS. The business of the Salvation Army is to save, not to
+wrangle about the name of the pathfinder. Dionysos or another:
+what does it matter?
+
+UNDERSHAFT [rising and approaching him] Professor Cusins you are
+a young man after my own heart.
+
+CUSINS. Mr Undershaft: you are, as far as I am able to gather, a
+most infernal old rascal; but you appeal very strongly to my
+sense of ironic humor.
+
+Undershaft mutely offers his hand. They shake.
+
+UNDERSHAFT [suddenly concentrating himself] And now to business.
+
+CUSINS. Pardon me. We were discussing religion. Why go back to
+such an uninteresting and unimportant subject as business?
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Religion is our business at present, because it is
+through religion alone that we can win Barbara.
+
+CUSINS. Have you, too, fallen in love with Barbara?
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Yes, with a father's love.
+
+CUSINS. A father's love for a grown-up daughter is the most
+dangerous of all infatuations. I apologize for mentioning my own
+pale, coy, mistrustful fancy in the same breath with it.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Keep to the point. We have to win her; and we are
+neither of us Methodists.
+
+CUSINS. That doesn't matter. The power Barbara wields here--the
+power that wields Barbara herself--is not Calvinism, not
+Presbyterianism, not Methodism--
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Not Greek Paganism either, eh?
+
+CUSINS. I admit that. Barbara is quite original in her religion.
+
+UNDERSHAFT [triumphantly] Aha! Barbara Undershaft would be. Her
+inspiration comes from within herself.
+
+CUSINS. How do you suppose it got there?
+
+UNDERSHAFT [in towering excitement] It is the Undershaft
+inheritance. I shall hand on my torch to my daughter. She shall
+make my converts and preach my gospel.
+
+CUSINS. What! Money and gunpowder!
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Yes, money and gunpowder; freedom and power; command
+of life and command of death.
+
+CUSINS [urbanely: trying to bring him down to earth] This is
+extremely interesting, Mr Undershaft. Of course you know that you
+are mad.
+
+UNDERSHAFT [with redoubled force] And you?
+
+CUSINS. Oh, mad as a hatter. You are welcome to my secret since I
+have discovered yours. But I am astonished. Can a madman make
+cannons?
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Would anyone else than a madman make them? And now
+[with surging energy] question for question. Can a sane man
+translate Euripides?
+
+CUSINS. No.
+
+UNDERSHAFT [reining him by the shoulder] Can a sane woman make a
+man of a waster or a woman of a worm?
+
+CUSINS [reeling before the storm] Father Colossus--Mammoth
+Millionaire--
+
+UNDERSHAFT [pressing him] Are there two mad people or three in
+this Salvation shelter to-day?
+
+CUSINS. You mean Barbara is as mad as we are!
+
+UNDERSHAFT [pushing him lightly off and resuming his equanimity
+suddenly and completely] Pooh, Professor! let us call things by
+their proper names. I am a millionaire; you are a poet; Barbara
+is a savior of souls. What have we three to do with the common
+mob of slaves and idolaters? [He sits down again with a shrug of
+contempt for the mob].
+
+CUSINS. Take care! Barbara is in love with the common people. So
+am I. Have you never felt the romance of that love?
+
+UNDERSHAFT [cold and sardonic] Have you ever been in love with
+Poverty, like St Francis? Have you ever been in love with Dirt,
+like St Simeon? Have you ever been in love with disease and
+suffering, like our nurses and philanthropists? Such passions are
+not virtues, but the most unnatural of all the vices. This love
+of the common people may please an earl's granddaughter and a
+university professor; but I have been a common man and a poor
+man; and it has no romance for me. Leave it to the poor to
+pretend that poverty is a blessing: leave it to the coward to
+make a religion of his cowardice by preaching humility: we know
+better than that. We three must stand together above the common
+people: how else can we help their children to climb up beside
+us? Barbara must belong to us, not to the Salvation Army.
+
+CUSINS. Well, I can only say that if you think you will get her
+away from the Salvation Army by talking to her as you have been
+talking to me, you don't know Barbara.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. My friend: I never ask for what I can buy.
+
+CUSINS [in a white fury] Do I understand you to imply that you
+can buy Barbara?
+
+UNDERSHAFT. No; but I can buy the Salvation Army.
+
+CUSINS. Quite impossible.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. You shall see. All religious organizations exist by
+selling themselves to the rich.
+
+CUSINS. Not the Army. That is the Church of the poor.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. All the more reason for buying it.
+
+CUSINS. I don't think you quite know what the Army does for the
+poor.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Oh yes I do. It draws their teeth: that is enough for
+me--as a man of business--
+
+CUSINS. Nonsense! It makes them sober--
+
+UNDERSHAFT. I prefer sober workmen. The profits are larger.
+
+CUSINS. --honest--
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Honest workmen are the most economical.
+
+CUSINS. --attached to their homes--
+
+UNDERSHAFT. So much the better: they will put up with anything
+sooner than change their shop.
+
+CUSINS. --happy--
+
+UNDERSHAFT. An invaluable safeguard against revolution.
+
+CUSINS. --unselfish--
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Indifferent to their own interests, which suits me
+exactly.
+
+CUSINS. --with their thoughts on heavenly things--
+
+UNDERSHAFT [rising] And not on Trade Unionism nor Socialism.
+Excellent.
+
+CUSINS [revolted] You really are an infernal old rascal.
+
+UNDERSHAFT [indicating Peter Shirley, who has just came from the
+shelter and strolled dejectedly down the yard between them] And
+this is an honest man!
+
+SHIRLEY. Yes; and what av I got by it? [he passes on bitterly and
+sits on the form, in the corner of the penthouse].
+
+Snobby Price, beaming sanctimoniously, and Jenny Hill, with a
+tambourine full of coppers, come from the shelter and go to the
+drum, on which Jenny begins to count the money.
+
+UNDERSHAFT [replying to Shirley] Oh, your employers must have got
+a good deal by it from first to last. [He sits on the table, with
+one foot on the side form. Cusins, overwhelmed, sits down on the
+same form nearer the shelter. Barbara comes from the shelter to
+the middle of the yard. She is excited and a little overwrought].
+
+BARBARA. We've just had a splendid experience meeting at the
+other gate in Cripps's lane. I've hardly ever seen them so much
+moved as they were by your confession, Mr Price.
+
+PRICE. I could almost be glad of my past wickedness if I could
+believe that it would elp to keep hathers stright.
+
+BARBARA. So it will, Snobby. How much, Jenny?
+
+JENNY. Four and tenpence, Major.
+
+BARBARA. Oh Snobby, if you had given your poor mother just one
+more kick, we should have got the whole five shillings!
+
+PRICE. If she heard you say that, miss, she'd be sorry I didn't.
+But I'm glad. Oh what a joy it will be to her when she hears I'm
+saved!
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Shall I contribute the odd twopence, Barbara? The
+millionaire's mite, eh? [He takes a couple of pennies from his
+pocket.]
+
+BARBARA. How did you make that twopence?
+
+UNDERSHAFT. As usual. By selling cannons, torpedoes, submarines,
+and my new patent Grand Duke hand grenade.
+
+BARBARA. Put it back in your pocket. You can't buy your Salvation
+here for twopence: you must work it out.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Is twopence not enough? I can afford a little more,
+if you press me.
+
+BARBARA. Two million millions would not be enough. There is bad
+blood on your hands; and nothing but good blood can cleanse them.
+Money is no use. Take it away. [She turns to Cusins]. Dolly: you
+must write another letter for me to the papers. [He makes a wry
+face]. Yes: I know you don't like it; but it must be done. The
+starvation this winter is beating us: everybody is unemployed.
+The General says we must close this shelter if we cant get more
+money. I force the collections at the meetings until I am
+ashamed, don't I, Snobby?
+
+PRICE. It's a fair treat to see you work it, miss. The way you
+got them up from three-and-six to four-and-ten with that hymn,
+penny by penny and verse by verse, was a caution. Not a Cheap
+Jack on Mile End Waste could touch you at it.
+
+BARBARA. Yes; but I wish we could do without it. I am getting at
+last to think more of the collection than of the people's souls.
+And what are those hatfuls of pence and halfpence? We want
+thousands! tens of thousands! hundreds of thousands! I want to
+convert people, not to be always begging for the Army in a way
+I'd die sooner than beg for myself.
+
+UNDERSHAFT [in profound irony] Genuine unselfishness is capable
+of anything, my dear.
+
+BARBARA [unsuspectingly, as she turns away to take the money
+from the drum and put it in a cash bag she carries] Yes, isn't
+it? [Undershaft looks sardonically at Cusins].
+
+CUSINS [aside to Undershaft] Mephistopheles! Machiavelli!
+
+BARBARA [tears coming into her eyes as she ties the bag and
+pockets it] How are we to feed them? I can't talk religion to a
+man with bodily hunger in his eyes. [Almost breaking down] It's
+frightful.
+
+JENNY [running to her] Major, dear--
+
+BARBARA [rebounding] No: don't comfort me. It will be all right.
+We shall get the money.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. How?
+
+JENNY. By praying for it, of course. Mrs Baines says she prayed
+for it last night; and she has never prayed for it in vain: never
+once. [She goes to the gate and looks out into the street].
+
+BARBARA [who has dried her eyes and regained her composure] By
+the way, dad, Mrs Baines has come to march with us to our big
+meeting this afternoon; and she is very anxious to meet you, for
+some reason or other. Perhaps she'll convert you.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. I shall be delighted, my dear.
+
+JENNY [at the gate: excitedly] Major! Major! Here's that man back
+again.
+
+BARBARA. What man?
+
+JENNY. The man that hit me. Oh, I hope he's coming back to join
+us.
+
+Bill Walker, with frost on his jacket, comes through the gate,
+his hands deep in his pockets and his chin sunk between his
+shoulders, like a cleaned-out gambler. He halts between Barbara
+and the drum.
+
+BARBARA. Hullo, Bill! Back already!
+
+BILL [nagging at her] Bin talkin ever sense, av you?
+
+BARBARA. Pretty nearly. Well, has Todger paid you out for poor
+Jenny's jaw?
+
+BILL. NO he ain't.
+
+BARBARA. I thought your jacket looked a bit snowy.
+
+BILL. So it is snowy. You want to know where the snow come from,
+don't you?
+
+BARBARA. Yes.
+
+BILL. Well, it come from off the ground in Parkinses Corner in
+Kennintahn. It got rubbed off be my shoulders see?
+
+BARBARA. Pity you didn't rub some off with your knees, Bill! That
+would have done you a lot of good.
+
+BILL [with your mirthless humor] I was saving another man's knees
+at the time. E was kneelin on my ed, so e was.
+
+JENNY. Who was kneeling on your head?
+
+BILL. Todger was. E was prayin for me: prayin comfortable with me
+as a carpet. So was Mog. So was the ole bloomin meetin. Mog she
+sez "O Lord break is stubborn spirit; but don't urt is dear art."
+That was wot she said. "Don't urt is dear art"! An er bloke--thirteen
+stun four!--kneelin wiv all is weight on me. Funny, ain't it?
+
+JENNY. Oh no. We're so sorry, Mr Walker.
+
+BARBARA [enjoying it frankly] Nonsense! of course it's funny.
+Served you right, Bill! You must have done something to him
+first.
+
+BILL [doggedly] I did wot I said I'd do. I spit in is eye. E
+looks up at the sky and sez, "O that I should be fahnd worthy to
+be spit upon for the gospel's sake!" a sez; an Mog sez "Glory
+Allelloolier!"; an then a called me Brother, an dahned me as if I
+was a kid and a was me mother washin me a Setterda nawt. I adn't
+just no show wiv im at all. Arf the street prayed; an the tother
+arf larfed fit to split theirselves. [To Barbara] There! are you
+settisfawd nah?
+
+BARBARA [her eyes dancing] Wish I'd been there, Bill.
+
+BILL. Yes: you'd a got in a hextra bit o talk on me, wouldn't
+you?
+
+JENNY. I'm so sorry, Mr. Walker.
+
+BILL [fiercely] Don't you go bein sorry for me: you've no call.
+Listen ere. I broke your jawr.
+
+JENNY. No, it didn't hurt me: indeed it didn't, except for a
+moment. It was only that I was frightened.
+
+BILL. I don't want to be forgive be you, or be ennybody. Wot I
+did I'll pay for. I tried to get me own jawr broke to settisfaw
+you--
+
+JENNY [distressed] Oh no--
+
+BILL [impatiently] Tell y'I did: cawn't you listen to wot's bein
+told you? All I got be it was bein made a sight of in the public
+street for me pains. Well, if I cawn't settisfaw you one way, I
+can another. Listen ere! I ad two quid saved agen the frost; an
+I've a pahnd of it left. A mate n mine last week ad words with
+the Judy e's goin to marry. E give er wot-for; an e's bin fined
+fifteen bob. E ad a right to it er because they was goin to be
+marrid; but I adn't no right to it you; so put anather fawv bob
+on an call it a pahnd's worth. [He produces a sovereign]. Ere's
+the money. Take it; and let's av no more o your forgivin an
+prayin and your Major jawrin me. Let wot I done be done and paid
+for; and let there be a end of it.
+
+JENNY. Oh, I couldn't take it, Mr. Walker. But if you would give
+a shilling or two to poor Rummy Mitchens! you really did hurt
+her; and she's old.
+
+BILL [contemptuously] Not likely. I'd give her anather as soon as
+look at er. Let her av the lawr o me as she threatened! She ain't
+forgiven me: not mach. Wot I done to er is not on me mawnd--wot
+she [indicating Barbara] might call on me conscience--no more
+than stickin a pig. It's this Christian game o yours that I won't
+av played agen me: this bloomin forgivin an noggin an jawrin that
+makes a man that sore that iz lawf's a burdn to im. I won't av
+it, I tell you; so take your money and stop throwin your silly
+bashed face hup agen me.
+
+JENNY. Major: may I take a little of it for the Army?
+
+BARBARA. No: the Army is not to be bought. We want your soul,
+Bill; and we'll take nothing less.
+
+BILL [bitterly] I know. It ain't enough. Me an me few shillins is
+not good enough for you. You're a earl's grendorter, you are.
+Nothin less than a underd pahnd for you.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Come, Barbara! you could do a great deal of good with
+a hundred pounds. If you will set this gentleman's mind at ease
+by taking his pound, I will give the other ninety-nine [Bill,
+astounded by such opulence, instinctively touches his cap].
+
+BARBARA. Oh, you're too extravagant, papa. Bill offers twenty
+pieces of silver. All you need offer is the other ten. That will
+make the standard price to buy anybody who's for sale. I'm not;
+and the Army's not. [To Bill] You'll never have another quiet
+moment, Bill, until you come round to us. You can't stand out
+against your salvation.
+
+BILL [sullenly] I cawn't stend aht agen music all wrastlers and
+artful tongued women. I've offered to pay. I can do no more. Take
+it or leave it. There it is. [He throws the sovereign on the
+drum, and sits down on the horse-trough. The coin fascinates
+Snobby Price, who takes an early opportunity of dropping his cap
+on it].
+
+Mrs Baines comes from the shelter. She is dressed as a Salvation
+Army Commissioner. She is an earnest looking woman of about 40,
+with a caressing, urgent voice, and an appealing manner.
+
+BARBARA. This is my father, Mrs Baines. [Undershaft comes from
+the table, taking his hat off with marked civility]. Try what you
+can do with him. He won't listen to me, because he remembers what
+a fool I was when I was a baby.
+
+[She leaves them together and chats with Jenny].
+
+MRS BAINES. Have you been shown over the shelter, Mr Undershaft?
+You know the work we're doing, of course.
+
+UNDERSHAFT [very civilly] The whole nation knows it, Mrs Baines.
+
+MRS BAINES. No, Sir: the whole nation does not know it, or we
+should not be crippled as we are for want of money to carry our
+work through the length and breadth of the land. Let me tell you
+that there would have been rioting this winter in London but for
+us.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. You really think so?
+
+MRS BAINES. I know it. I remember 1886, when you rich gentlemen
+hardened your hearts against the cry of the poor. They broke the
+windows of your clubs in Pall Mall.
+
+UNDERSHAFT [gleaming with approval of their method] And the
+Mansion House Fund went up next day from thirty thousand pounds
+to seventy-nine thousand! I remember quite well.
+
+MRS BAINES. Well, won't you help me to get at the people? They
+won't break windows then. Come here, Price. Let me show you to
+this gentleman [Price comes to be inspected]. Do you remember the
+window breaking?
+
+PRICE. My ole father thought it was the revolution, ma'am.
+
+MRS BAINES. Would you break windows now?
+
+PRICE. Oh no ma'm. The windows of eaven av bin opened to me. I
+know now that the rich man is a sinner like myself.
+
+RUMMY [appearing above at the loft door] Snobby Price!
+
+SNOBBY. Wot is it?
+
+RUMMY. Your mother's askin for you at the other gate in Crippses
+Lane. She's heard about your confession [Price turns pale].
+
+MRS BAINES. Go, Mr. Price; and pray with her.
+
+JENNY. You can go through the shelter, Snobby.
+
+PRICE [to Mrs Baines] I couldn't face her now; ma'am, with all
+the weight of my sins fresh on me. Tell her she'll find her son
+at ome, waitin for her in prayer. [He skulks off through the
+gate, incidentally stealing the sovereign on his way out by
+picking up his cap from the drum].
+
+MRS BAINES [with swimming eyes] You see how we take the anger and
+the bitterness against you out of their hearts, Mr Undershaft.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. It is certainly most convenient and gratifying to all
+large employers of labor, Mrs Baines.
+
+MRS BAINES. Barbara: Jenny: I have good news: most wonderful
+news. [Jenny runs to her]. My prayers have been answered. I told
+you they would, Jenny, didn't I?
+
+JENNY. Yes, yes.
+
+BARBARA [moving nearer to the drum] Have we got money enough to
+keep the shelter open?
+
+MRS BAINES. I hope we shall have enough to keep all the shelters
+open. Lord Saxmundham has promised us five thousand pounds--
+
+BARBARA. Hooray!
+
+JENNY. Glory!
+
+MRS BAINES. --if--
+
+BARBARA. "If!" If what?
+
+MRS BAINES. If five other gentlemen will give a thousand each to
+make it up to ten thousand.
+
+BARBARA. Who is Lord Saxmundham? I never heard of him.
+
+UNDERSHAFT [who has pricked up his ears at the peer's name, and
+is now watching Barbara curiously] A new creation, my dear. You
+have heard of Sir Horace Bodger?
+
+BARBARA. Bodger! Do you mean the distiller? Bodger's whisky!
+
+UNDERSHAFT. That is the man. He is one of the greatest of our
+public benefactors. He restored the cathedral at Hakington. They
+made him a baronet for that. He gave half a million to the funds
+of his party: they made him a baron for that.
+
+SHIRLEY. What will they give him for the five thousand?
+
+UNDERSHAFT. There is nothing left to give him. So the five
+thousand, I should think, is to save his soul.
+
+MRS BAINES. Heaven grant it may! Oh Mr. Undershaft, you have some
+very rich friends. Can't you help us towards the other five
+thousand? We are going to hold a great meeting this afternoon at
+the Assembly Hall in the Mile End Road. If I could only announce
+that one gentleman had come forward to support Lord Saxmundham,
+others would follow. Don't you know somebody? Couldn't you?
+Wouldn't you? [her eyes fill with tears] oh, think of those poor
+people, Mr Undershaft: think of how much it means to them, and
+how little to a great man like you.
+
+UNDERSHAFT [sardonically gallant] Mrs Baines: you are
+irresistible. I can't disappoint you; and I can't deny myself the
+satisfaction of making Bodger pay up. You shall have your five
+thousand pounds.
+
+MRS BAINES. Thank God!
+
+UNDERSHAFT. You don't thank me?
+
+MRS BAINES. Oh sir, don't try to be cynical: don't be ashamed of
+being a good man. The Lord will bless you abundantly; and our
+prayers will be like a strong fortification round you all the
+days of your life. [With a touch of caution] You will let me have
+the cheque to show at the meeting, won't you? Jenny: go in and
+fetch a pen and ink. [Jenny runs to the shelter door].
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Do not disturb Miss Hill: I have a fountain pen.
+[Jenny halts. He sits at the table and writes the cheque. Cusins
+rises to make more room for him. They all watch him silently].
+
+BILL [cynically, aside to Barbara, his voice and accent horribly
+debased] Wot prawce Selvytion nah?
+
+BARBARA. Stop. [Undershaft stops writing: they all turn to her in
+surprise]. Mrs Baines: are you really going to take this money?
+
+MRS BAINES [astonished] Why not, dear?
+
+BARBARA. Why not! Do you know what my father is? Have you
+forgotten that Lord Saxmundham is Bodger the whisky man? Do you
+remember how we implored the County Council to stop him from
+writing Bodger's Whisky in letters of fire against the sky; so
+that the poor drinkruined creatures on the embankment could not
+wake up from their snatches of sleep without being reminded of
+their deadly thirst by that wicked sky sign? Do you know that the
+worst thing I have had to fight here is not the devil, but
+Bodger, Bodger, Bodger, with his whisky, his distilleries, and
+his tied houses? Are you going to make our shelter another tied
+house for him, and ask me to keep it?
+
+BILL. Rotten drunken whisky it is too.
+
+MRS BAINES. Dear Barbara: Lord Saxmundham has a soul to be saved
+like any of us. If heaven has found the way to make a good use of
+his money, are we to set ourselves up against the answer to our
+prayers?
+
+BARBARA. I know he has a soul to be saved. Let him come down
+here; and I'll do my best to help him to his salvation. But he
+wants to send his cheque down to buy us, and go on being as
+wicked as ever.
+
+UNDERSHAFT [with a reasonableness which Cusins alone perceives to
+be ironical] My dear Barbara: alcohol is a very necessary
+article. It heals the sick--
+
+BARBARA. It does nothing of the sort.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Well, it assists the doctor: that is perhaps a less
+questionable way of putting it. It makes life bearable to
+millions of people who could not endure their existence if they
+were quite sober. It enables Parliament to do things at eleven at
+night that no sane person would do at eleven in the morning. Is
+it Bodger's fault that this inestimable gift is deplorably abused
+by less than one per cent of the poor? [He turns again to the
+table; signs the cheque; and crosses it].
+
+MRS BAINES. Barbara: will there be less drinking or more if all
+those poor souls we are saving come to-morrow and find the doors
+of our shelters shut in their faces? Lord Saxmundham gives us the
+money to stop drinking--to take his own business from him.
+
+CUSINS [impishly] Pure self-sacrifice on Bodger's part, clearly!
+Bless dear Bodger! [Barbara almost breaks down as Adolpbus, too,
+fails her].
+
+UNDERSHAFT [tearing out the cheque and pocketing the book as he
+rises and goes past Cusins to Mrs Baines] I also, Mrs Baines, may
+claim a little disinterestedness. Think of my business! think of
+the widows and orphans! the men and lads torn to pieces with
+shrapnel and poisoned with lyddite [Mrs Baines shrinks; but he
+goes on remorselessly]! the oceans of blood, not one drop of
+which is shed in a really just cause! the ravaged crops! the
+peaceful peasants forced, women and men, to till their fields
+under the fire of opposing armies on pain of starvation! the bad
+blood of the fierce little cowards at home who egg on others to
+fight for the gratification of their national vanity! All this
+makes money for me: I am never richer, never busier than when the
+papers are full of it. Well, it is your work to preach peace on
+earth and goodwill to men. [Mrs Baines's face lights up again].
+Every convert you make is a vote against war. [Her lips move in
+prayer]. Yet I give you this money to help you to hasten my own
+commercial ruin. [He gives her the cheque].
+
+CUSINS [mounting the form in an ecstasy of mischief] The
+millennium will be inaugurated by the unselfishness of Undershaft
+and Bodger. Oh be joyful! [He takes the drumsticks from his
+pockets and flourishes them].
+
+MRS BAINES [taking the cheque] The longer I live the more proof I
+see that there is an Infinite Goodness that turns everything to
+the work of salvation sooner or later. Who would have thought
+that any good could have come out of war and drink? And yet their
+profits are brought today to the feet of salvation to do its
+blessed work. [She is affected to tears].
+
+JENNY [running to Mrs Baines and throwing her arms round her] Oh
+dear! how blessed, how glorious it all is!
+
+CUSINS [in a convulsion of irony] Let us seize this unspeakable
+moment. Let us march to the great meeting at once. Excuse me just
+an instant. [He rushes into the shelter. Jenny takes her
+tambourine from the drum head].
+
+MRS BAINES. Mr Undershaft: have you ever seen a thousand people
+fall on their knees with one impulse and pray? Come with us to
+the meeting. Barbara shall tell them that the Army is saved, and
+saved through you.
+
+CUSINS [returning impetuously from the shelter with a flag and a
+trombone, and coming between Mrs Baines and Undershaft] You shall
+carry the flag down the first street, Mrs Baines [he gives her
+the flag]. Mr Undershaft is a gifted trombonist: he shall intone
+an Olympian diapason to the West Ham Salvation March. [Aside to
+Undershaft, as he forces the trombone on him] Blow, Machiavelli,
+blow.
+
+UNDERSHAFT [aside to him, as he takes the trombone] The trumpet
+in Zion! [Cusins rushes to the drum, which he takes up and puts
+on. Undershaft continues, aloud] I will do my best. I could vamp
+a bass if I knew the tune.
+
+CUSINS. It is a wedding chorus from one of Donizetti's operas;
+but we have converted it. We convert everything to good here,
+including Bodger. You remember the chorus. "For thee immense
+rejoicing--immenso giubilo--immenso giubilo." [With drum
+obbligato] Rum tum ti tum tum, tum tum ti ta--
+
+BARBARA. Dolly: you are breaking my heart.
+
+CUSINS. What is a broken heart more or less here? Dionysos
+Undershaft has descended. I am possessed.
+
+MRS BAINES. Come, Barbara: I must have my dear Major to carry the
+flag with me.
+
+JENNY. Yes, yes, Major darling.
+
+CUSINS [snatches the tambourine out of Jenny's hand and mutely
+offers it to Barbara].
+
+BARBARA [coming forward a little as she puts the offer behind her
+with a shudder, whilst Cusins recklessly tosses the tambourine
+back to Jenny and goes to the gate] I can't come.
+
+JENNY. Not come!
+
+MRS BAINES [with tears in her eyes] Barbara: do you think
+I am wrong to take the money?
+
+BARBARA [impulsively going to her and kissing her] No, no:
+God help you, dear, you must: you are saving the Army. Go; and
+may you have a great meeting!
+
+JENNY. But arn't you coming?
+
+BARBARA. No. [She begins taking off the silver brooch from her
+collar].
+
+MRS BAINES. Barbara: what are you doing?
+
+JENNY. Why are you taking your badge off? You can't be going to
+leave us, Major.
+
+BARBARA [quietly] Father: come here.
+
+UNDERSHAFT [coming to her] My dear! [Seeing that she is going to
+pin the badge on his collar, he retreats to the penthouse in some
+alarm].
+
+BARBARA [following him] Don't be frightened. [She pins the badge
+on and steps back towards the table, showing him to the others]
+There! It's not much for 5000 pounds is it?
+
+MRS BAINES. Barbara: if you won't come and pray with us, promise
+me you will pray for us.
+
+BARBARA. I can't pray now. Perhaps I shall never pray again.
+
+MRS BAINES. Barbara!
+
+JENNY. Major!
+
+BARBARA [almost delirious] I can't bear any more. Quick march!
+
+CUSINS [calling to the procession in the street outside] Off we
+go. Play up, there! Immenso giubilo. [He gives the time with his
+drum; and the band strikes up the march, which rapidly becomes
+more distant as the procession moves briskly away].
+
+MRS BAINES. I must go, dear. You're overworked: you will be all
+right tomorrow. We'll never lose you. Now Jenny: step out with
+the old flag. Blood and Fire! [She marches out through the gate
+with her flag].
+
+JENNY. Glory Hallelujah! [flourishing her tambourine and
+marching].
+
+UNDERSHAFT [to Cusins, as he marches out past him easing the
+slide of his trombone] "My ducats and my daughter"!
+
+CUSINS [following him out] Money and gunpowder!
+
+BARBARA. Drunkenness and Murder! My God: why hast thou forsaken
+me?
+
+She sinks on the form with her face buried in her hands. The
+march passes away into silence. Bill Walker steals across to her.
+
+BILL [taunting] Wot prawce Selvytion nah?
+
+SHIRLEY. Don't you hit her when she's down.
+
+BILL. She it me wen aw wiz dahn. Waw shouldn't I git a bit o me
+own back?
+
+BARBARA [raising her head] I didn't take your money, Bill. [She
+crosses the yard to the gate and turns her back on the two men to
+hide her face from them].
+
+BILL [sneering after her] Naow, it warn't enough for you.
+[Turning to the drum, he misses the money]. Ellow! If you ain't
+took it summun else az. Were's it gorn? Blame me if Jenny Ill
+didn't take it arter all!
+
+RUMMY [screaming at him from the loft] You lie, you dirty
+blackguard! Snobby Price pinched it off the drum wen e took ap iz
+cap. I was ap ere all the time an see im do it.
+
+BILL. Wot! Stowl maw money! Waw didn't you call thief on him, you
+silly old mucker you?
+
+RUMMY. To serve you aht for ittin me acrost the face. It's cost
+y'pahnd, that az. [Raising a paean of squalid triumph] I done
+you. I'm even with you. I've ad it aht o y--. [Bill snatches up
+Shirley's mug and hurls it at her. She slams the loft door and
+vanishes. The mug smashes against the door and falls in
+fragments].
+
+BILL [beginning to chuckle] Tell us, ole man, wot o'clock this
+morrun was it wen im as they call Snobby Prawce was sived?
+
+BARBARA [turning to him more composedly, and with unspoiled
+sweetness] About half past twelve, Bill. And he pinched your
+pound at a quarter to two. I know. Well, you can't afford to lose
+it. I'll send it to you.
+
+BILL [his voice and accent suddenly improving] Not if I was to
+starve for it. I ain't to be bought.
+
+SHIRLEY. Ain't you? You'd sell yourself to the devil for a pint o
+beer; ony there ain't no devil to make the offer.
+
+BILL [unshamed] So I would, mate, and often av, cheerful. But she
+cawn't buy me. [Approaching Barbara] You wanted my soul, did you?
+Well, you ain't got it.
+
+BARBARA. I nearly got it, Bill. But we've sold it back to you for
+ten thousand pounds.
+
+SHIRLEY. And dear at the money!
+
+BARBARA. No, Peter: it was worth more than money.
+
+BILL [salvationproof] It's no good: you cawn't get rahnd me nah.
+I don't blieve in it; and I've seen today that I was right.
+[Going] So long, old soupkitchener! Ta, ta, Major Earl's Grendorter!
+[Turning at the gate] Wot prawce Selvytion nah? Snobby Prawce!
+Ha! ha!
+
+BARBARA [offering her hand] Goodbye, Bill.
+
+BILL [taken aback, half plucks his cap off then shoves it on
+again defiantly] Git aht. [Barbara drops her hand, discouraged.
+He has a twinge of remorse]. But thet's aw rawt, you knaow.
+Nathink pasnl. Naow mellice. So long, Judy. [He goes].
+
+BARBARA. No malice. So long, Bill.
+
+SHIRLEY [shaking his head] You make too much of him, miss, in
+your innocence.
+
+BARBARA [going to him] Peter: I'm like you now. Cleaned out, and
+lost my job.
+
+SHIRLEY. You've youth an hope. That's two better than me. That's
+hope for you.
+
+BARBARA. I'll get you a job, Peter, the youth will have to be
+enough for me. [She counts her money]. I have just enough left
+for two teas at Lockharts, a Rowton doss for you, and my tram and
+bus home. [He frowns and rises with offended pride. She takes his
+arm]. Don't be proud, Peter: it's sharing between friends. And
+promise me you'll talk to me and not let me cry. [She draws him
+towards the gate].
+
+SHIRLEY. Well, I'm not accustomed to talk to the like of you--
+
+BARBARA [urgently] Yes, yes: you must talk to me. Tell me about
+Tom Paine's books and Bradlaugh's lectures. Come along.
+
+SHIRLEY. Ah, if you would only read Tom Paine in the proper
+spirit, miss! [They go out through the gate together].
+
+
+
+ACT III
+
+Next day after lunch Lady Britomart is writing in the library in
+Wilton Crescent. Sarah is reading in the armchair near the
+window. Barbara, in ordinary dresss, pale and brooding, is on the
+settee. Charley Lomax enters. Coming forward between the settee
+and the writing table, he starts on seeing Barbara fashionably
+attired and in low spirits.
+
+LOMAX. You've left off your uniform!
+
+Barbara says nothing; but an expression of pain passes over
+her face.
+
+LADY BRITOMART [warning him in low tones to be careful] Charles!
+
+LOMAX [much concerned, sitting down sympathetically on the settee
+beside Barbara] I'm awfully sorry, Barbara. You know I helped you
+all I could with the concertina and so forth. [Momentously]
+Still, I have never shut my eyes to the fact that there is a
+certain amount of tosh about the Salvation Army. Now the claims
+of the Church of England--
+
+LADY BRITOMART. That's enough, Charles. Speak of something suited
+to your mental capacity.
+
+LOMAX. But surely the Church of England is suited to all our
+capacities.
+
+BARBARA [pressing his hand] Thank you for your sympathy, Cholly.
+Now go and spoon with Sarah.
+
+LOMAX [rising and going to Sarah] How is my ownest today?
+
+SARAH. I wish you wouldn't tell Cholly to do things, Barbara. He
+always comes straight and does them. Cholly: we're going to the
+works at Perivale St. Andrews this afternoon.
+
+LOMAX. What works?
+
+SARAH. The cannon works.
+
+LOMAX. What! Your governor's shop!
+
+SARAH. Yes.
+
+LOMAX. Oh I say!
+
+Cusins enters in poor condition. He also starts visibly when he
+sees Barbara without her uniform.
+
+BARBARA. I expected you this morning, Dolly. Didn't you guess
+that?
+
+CUSINS [sitting down beside her] I'm sorry. I have only just
+breakfasted.
+
+SARAH. But we've just finished lunch.
+
+BARBARA. Have you had one of your bad nights?
+
+CUSINS. No: I had rather a good night: in fact, one of the most
+remarkable nights I have ever passed.
+
+BARBARA. The meeting?
+
+CUSINS. No: after the meeting.
+
+LADY BRITOMART. You should have gone to bed after the meeting.
+What were you doing?
+
+CUSINS. Drinking.
+
+  LADY BRITOMART. }{ Adolphus!
+  SARAH.          }{ Dolly!
+  BARBARA.        }{ Dolly!
+  LOMAX.          }{ Oh I say!
+
+LADY BRITOMART. What were you drinking, may I ask?
+
+CUSINS. A most devilish kind of Spanish burgundy, warranted free
+from added alcohol: a Temperance burgundy in fact. Its richness
+in natural alcohol made any addition superfluous.
+
+BARBARA. Are you joking, Dolly?
+
+CUSINS [patiently] No. I have been making a night of it with the
+nominal head of this household: that is all.
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Andrew made you drunk!
+
+CUSINS. No: he only provided the wine. I think it was Dionysos
+who made me drunk. [To Barbara] I told you I was possessed.
+
+LADY BRITOMART. You're not sober yet. Go home to bed at once.
+
+CUSINS. I have never before ventured to reproach you, Lady Brit;
+but how could you marry the Prince of Darkness?
+
+LADY BRITOMART. It was much more excusable to marry him than to
+get drunk with him. That is a new accomplishment of Andrew's, by
+the way. He usen't to drink.
+
+CUSINS. He doesn't now. He only sat there and completed the wreck
+of my moral basis, the rout of my convictions, the purchase of my
+soul. He cares for you, Barbara. That is what makes him so
+dangerous to me.
+
+BARBARA. That has nothing to do with it, Dolly. There are larger
+loves and diviner dreams than the fireside ones. You know that,
+don't you?
+
+CUSINS. Yes: that is our understanding. I know it. I hold to it.
+Unless he can win me on that holier ground he may amuse me for a
+while; but he can get no deeper hold, strong as he is.
+
+BARBARA. Keep to that; and the end will be right. Now tell me
+what happened at the meeting?
+
+CUSINS. It was an amazing meeting. Mrs Baines almost died of
+emotion. Jenny Hill went stark mad with hysteria. The Prince of
+Darkness played his trombone like a madman: its brazen roarings
+were like the laughter of the damned. 117 conversions took place
+then and there. They prayed with the most touching sincerity and
+gratitude for Bodger, and for the anonymous donor of the 5000
+pounds. Your father would not let his name be given.
+
+LOMAX. That was rather fine of the old man, you know. Most chaps
+would have wanted the advertisement.
+
+CUSINS. He said all the charitable institutions would be down on
+him like kites on a battle field if he gave his name.
+
+LADY BRITOMART. That's Andrew all over. He never does a proper
+thing without giving an improper reason for it.
+
+CUSINS. He convinced me that I have all my life been doing
+improper things for proper reasons.
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Adolphus: now that Barbara has left the Salvation
+Army, you had better leave it too. I will not have you playing
+that drum in the streets.
+
+CUSINS. Your orders are already obeyed, Lady Brit.
+
+BARBARA. Dolly: were you ever really in earnest about it? Would
+you have joined if you had never seen me?
+
+CUSINS [disingenuously] Well--er--well, possibly, as a collector
+of religions--
+
+LOMAX [cunningly] Not as a drummer, though, you know. You are a
+very clearheaded brainy chap, Cholly; and it must have been
+apparent to you that there is a certain amount of tosh about--
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Charles: if you must drivel, drivel like a
+grown-up man and not like a schoolboy.
+
+LOMAX [out of countenance] Well, drivel is drivel, don't you
+know, whatever a man's age.
+
+LADY BRITOMART. In good society in England, Charles, men drivel
+at all ages by repeating silly formulas with an air of wisdom.
+Schoolboys make their own formulas out of slang, like you. When
+they reach your age, and get political private secretaryships and
+things of that sort, they drop slang and get their formulas out
+of The Spectator or The Times. You had better confine yourself to
+The Times. You will find that there is a certain amount of tosh
+about The Times; but at least its language is reputable.
+
+LOMAX [overwhelmed] You are so awfully strong-minded, Lady Brit--
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Rubbish! [Morrison comes in]. What is it?
+
+MORRISON. If you please, my lady, Mr Undershaft has just drove up
+to the door.
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Well, let him in. [Morrison hesitates]. What's
+the matter with you?
+
+MORRISON. Shall I announce him, my lady; or is he at home here,
+so to speak, my lady?
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Announce him.
+
+MORRISON. Thank you, my lady. You won't mind my asking, I hope.
+The occasion is in a manner of speaking new to me.
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Quite right. Go and let him in.
+
+MORRISON. Thank you, my lady. [He withdraws].
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Children: go and get ready. [Sarah and Barbara go
+upstairs for their out-of-door wrap]. Charles: go and tell
+Stephen to come down here in five minutes: you will find him in
+the drawing room. [Charles goes]. Adolphus: tell them to send
+round the carriage in about fifteen minutes. [Adolphus goes].
+
+MORRISON [at the door] Mr Undershaft.
+
+Undershaft comes in. Morrison goes out.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Alone! How fortunate!
+
+LADY BRITOMART [rising] Don't be sentimental, Andrew. Sit down.
+[She sits on the settee: he sits beside her, on her left. She
+comes to the point before he has time to breathe]. Sarah must
+have 800 pounds a year until Charles Lomax comes into his
+property. Barbara will need more, and need it permanently,
+because Adolphus hasn't any property.
+
+UNDERSHAFT [resignedly] Yes, my dear: I will see to it. Anything
+else? for yourself, for instance?
+
+LADY BRITOMART. I want to talk to you about Stephen.
+
+UNDERSHAFT [rather wearily] Don't, my dear. Stephen doesn't
+interest me.
+
+LADY BRITOMART. He does interest me. He is our son.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Do you really think so? He has induced us to bring
+him into the world; but he chose his parents very incongruously,
+I think. I see nothing of myself in him, and less of you.
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Andrew: Stephen is an excellent son, and a most
+steady, capable, highminded young man. YOU are simply trying to
+find an excuse for disinheriting him.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. My dear Biddy: the Undershaft tradition disinherits
+him. It would be dishonest of me to leave the cannon foundry to
+my son.
+
+LADY BRITOMART. It would be most unnatural and improper of you to
+leave it to anyone else, Andrew. Do you suppose this wicked and
+immoral tradition can be kept up for ever? Do you pretend that
+Stephen could not carry on the foundry just as well as all the
+other sons of the big business houses?
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Yes: he could learn the office routine without
+understanding the business, like all the other sons; and the firm
+would go on by its own momentum until the real Undershaft--probably
+an Italian or a German--would invent a new method and cut him out.
+
+LADY BRITOMART. There is nothing that any Italian or German could
+do that Stephen could not do. And Stephen at least has breeding.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. The son of a foundling! nonsense!
+
+LADY BRITOMART. My son, Andrew! And even you may have good blood
+in your veins for all you know.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. True. Probably I have. That is another argument in
+favor of a foundling.
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Andrew: don't be aggravating. And don't be
+wicked. At present you are both.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. This conversation is part of the Undershaft
+tradition, Biddy. Every Undershaft's wife has treated him to it
+ever since the house was founded. It is mere waste of breath. If
+the tradition be ever broken it will be for an abler man than
+Stephen.
+
+LADY BRITOMART [pouting] Then go away.
+
+UNDERSHAFT [deprecatory] Go away!
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Yes: go away. If you will do nothing for Stephen,
+you are not wanted here. Go to your foundling, whoever he is; and
+look after him.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. The fact is, Biddy--
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Don't call me Biddy. I don't call you Andy.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. I will not call my wife Britomart: it is not good
+sense. Seriously, my love, the Undershaft tradition has landed me
+in a difficulty. I am getting on in years; and my partner Lazarus
+has at last made a stand and insisted that the succession must be
+settled one way or the other; and of course he is quite right.
+You see, I haven't found a fit successor yet.
+
+LADY BRITOMART [obstinately] There is Stephen.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. That's just it: all the foundlings I can find are
+exactly like Stephen.
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Andrew!!
+
+UNDERSHAFT. I want a man with no relations and no schooling: that
+is, a man who would be out of the running altogether if he were
+not a strong man. And I can't find him. Every blessed foundling
+nowadays is snapped up in his infancy by Barnardo homes, or
+School Board officers, or Boards of Guardians; and if he shows
+the least ability, he is fastened on by schoolmasters; trained to
+win scholarships like a racehorse; crammed with secondhand ideas;
+drilled and disciplined in docility and what they call good
+taste; and lamed for life so that he is fit for nothing but
+teaching. If you want to keep the foundry in the family, you had
+better find an eligible foundling and marry him to Barbara.
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Ah! Barbara! Your pet! You would sacrifice
+Stephen to Barbara.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Cheerfully. And you, my dear, would boil Barbara to
+make soup for Stephen.
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Andrew: this is not a question of our likings and
+dislikings: it is a question of duty. It is your duty to make
+Stephen your successor.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Just as much as it is your duty to submit to your
+husband. Come, Biddy! these tricks of the governing class are of
+no use with me. I am one of the governing class myself; and it is
+waste of time giving tracts to a missionary. I have the power in
+this matter; and I am not to be humbugged into using it for your
+purposes.
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Andrew: you can talk my head off; but you can't
+change wrong into right. And your tie is all on one side. Put it
+straight.
+
+UNDERSHAFT [disconcerted] It won't stay unless it's pinned [he
+fumbles at it with childish grimaces]--
+
+Stephen comes in.
+
+STEPHEN [at the door] I beg your pardon [about to retire].
+
+LADY BRITOMART. No: come in, Stephen. [Stephen comes forward to
+his mother's writing table.]
+
+UNDERSHAFT [not very cordially] Good afternoon.
+
+STEPHEN [coldly] Good afternoon.
+
+UNDERSHAFT [to Lady Britomart] He knows all about the tradition,
+I suppose?
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Yes. [To Stephen] It is what I told you last
+night, Stephen.
+
+UNDERSHAFT [sulkily] I understand you want to come into the
+cannon business.
+
+STEPHEN. _I_ go into trade! Certainly not.
+
+UNDERSHAFT [opening his eyes, greatly eased in mind and manner]
+Oh! in that case--!
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Cannons are not trade, Stephen. They are
+enterprise.
+
+STEPHEN. I have no intention of becoming a man of business in any
+sense. I have no capacity for business and no taste for it. I
+intend to devote myself to politics.
+
+UNDERSHAFT [rising] My dear boy: this is an immense relief to me.
+And I trust it may prove an equally good thing for the country. I
+was afraid you would consider yourself disparaged and slighted.
+[He moves towards Stephen as if to shake hands with him].
+
+LADY BRITOMART [rising and interposing] Stephen: I cannot allow
+you to throw away an enormous property like this.
+
+STEPHEN [stiffly] Mother: there must be an end of treating me as
+a child, if you please. [Lady Britomart recoils, deeply wounded
+by his tone]. Until last night I did not take your attitude
+seriously, because I did not think you meant it seriously. But I
+find now that you left me in the dark as to matters which you
+should have explained to me years ago. I am extremely hurt and
+offended. Any further discussion of my intentions had better take
+place with my father, as between one man and another.
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Stephen! [She sits down again; and her eyes fill
+with tears].
+
+UNDERSHAFT [with grave compassion] You see, my dear, it is only
+the big men who can be treated as children.
+
+STEPHEN. I am sorry, mother, that you have forced me--
+
+UNDERSHAFT [stopping him] Yes, yes, yes, yes: that's all right,
+Stephen. She wont interfere with you any more: your independence
+is achieved: you have won your latchkey. Don't rub it in; and
+above all, don't apologize. [He resumes his seat]. Now what about
+your future, as between one man and another--I beg your pardon,
+Biddy: as between two men and a woman.
+
+LADY BRITOMART [who has pulled herself together strongly] I quite
+understand, Stephen. By all means go your own way if you feel
+strong enough. [Stephen sits down magisterially in the chair at
+the writing table with an air of affirming his majority].
+
+UNDERSHAFT. It is settled that you do not ask for the succession
+to the cannon business.
+
+STEPHEN. I hope it is settled that I repudiate the cannon
+business.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Come, come! Don't be so devilishly sulky: it's
+boyish. Freedom should be generous. Besides, I owe you a fair
+start in life in exchange for disinheriting you. You can't become
+prime minister all at once. Haven't you a turn for something?
+What about literature, art and so forth?
+
+STEPHEN. I have nothing of the artist about me, either in faculty
+or character, thank Heaven!
+
+UNDERSHAFT. A philosopher, perhaps? Eh?
+
+STEPHEN. I make no such ridiculous pretension.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Just so. Well, there is the army, the navy, the Church,
+the Bar. The Bar requires some ability. What about the Bar?
+
+STEPHEN. I have not studied law. And I am afraid I have not the
+necessary push--I believe that is the name barristers give to
+their vulgarity--for success in pleading.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Rather a difficult case, Stephen. Hardly anything
+left but the stage, is there? [Stephen makes an impatient
+movement]. Well, come! is there anything you know or care for?
+
+STEPHEN [rising and looking at him steadily] I know the
+difference between right and wrong.
+
+UNDERSHAFT [hugely tickled] You don't say so! What! no capacity
+for business, no knowledge of law, no sympathy with art, no
+pretension to philosophy; only a simple knowledge of the secret
+that has puzzled all the philosophers, baffled all the lawyers,
+muddled all the men of business, and ruined most of the artists:
+the secret of right and wrong. Why, man, you're a genius, master
+of masters, a god! At twenty-four, too!
+
+STEPHEN [keeping his temper with difficulty] You are pleased to
+be facetious. I pretend to nothing more than any honorable
+English gentleman claims as his birthright [he sits down
+angrily].
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Oh, that's everybody's birthright. Look at poor
+little Jenny Hill, the Salvation lassie! she would think you were
+laughing at her if you asked her to stand up in the street and
+teach grammar or geography or mathematics or even drawingroom
+dancing; but it never occurs to her to doubt that she can teach
+morals and religion. You are all alike, you respectable people.
+You can't tell me the bursting strain of a ten-inch gun, which is
+a very simple matter; but you all think you can tell me the
+bursting strain of a man under temptation. You daren't handle
+high explosives; but you're all ready to handle honesty and
+truth and justice and the whole duty of man, and kill one another
+at that game. What a country! what a world!
+
+LADY BRITOMART [uneasily] What do you think he had better do,
+Andrew?
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Oh, just what he wants to do. He knows nothing; and
+he thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political
+career. Get him a private secretaryship to someone who can get
+him an Under Secretaryship; and then leave him alone. He will
+find his natural and proper place in the end on the Treasury
+bench.
+
+STEPHEN [springing up again] I am sorry, sir, that you force
+me to forget the respect due to you as my father. I am an
+Englishman; and I will not hear the Government of my country
+insulted. [He thrusts his hands in his pockets, and walks angrily
+across to the window].
+
+UNDERSHAFT [with a touch of brutality] The government of your
+country! _I_ am the government of your country: I, and Lazarus.
+Do you suppose that you and half a dozen amateurs like you,
+sitting in a row in that foolish gabble shop, can govern
+Undershaft and Lazarus? No, my friend: you will do what pays US.
+You will make war when it suits us, and keep peace when it
+doesn't. You will find out that trade requires certain measures
+when we have decided on those measures. When I want anything to
+keep my dividends up, you will discover that my want is a
+national need. When other people want something to keep my
+dividends down, you will call out the police and military. And in
+return you shall have the support and applause of my newspapers,
+and the delight of imagining that you are a great statesman.
+Government of your country! Be off with you, my boy, and play
+with your caucuses and leading articles and historic parties and
+great leaders and burning questions and the rest of your toys.
+_I_ am going back to my counting house to pay the piper and call
+the tune.
+
+STEPHEN [actually smiling, and putting his hand on his father's
+shoulder with indulgent patronage] Really, my dear father, it is
+impossible to be angry with you. You don't know how absurd all
+this sounds to ME. You are very properly proud of having been
+industrious enough to make money; and it is greatly to your
+credit that you have made so much of it. But it has kept you in
+circles where you are valued for your money and deferred to for
+it, instead of in the doubtless very oldfashioned and
+behind-the-times public school and university where I formed my
+habits of mind. It is natural for you to think that money governs
+England; but you must allow me to think I know better.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. And what does govern England, pray?
+
+STEPHEN. Character, father, character.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Whose character? Yours or mine?
+
+STEPHEN. Neither yours nor mine, father, but the best elements in
+the English national character.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Stephen: I've found your profession for you. You're a
+born journalist. I'll start you with a hightoned weekly review.
+There!
+
+Stephen goes to the smaller writing table and busies himself with
+his letters.
+
+Sarah, Barbara, Lomax, and Cusins come in ready for walking.
+Barbara crosses the room to the window and looks out. Cusins
+drifts amiably to the armchair, and Lomax remains near the door,
+whilst Sarah comes to her mother.
+
+SARAH. Go and get ready, mamma: the carriage is waiting. [Lady
+Britomart leaves the room.]
+
+UNDERSHAFT [to Sarah] Good day, my dear. Good afternoon, Mr.
+Lomax.
+
+LOMAX [vaguely] Ahdedoo.
+
+UNDERSHAFT [to Cusins] quite well after last night, Euripides,
+eh?
+
+CUSINS. As well as can be expected.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. That's right. [To Barbara] So you are coming to see
+my death and devastation factory, Barbara?
+
+BARBARA [at the window] You came yesterday to see my salvation
+factory. I promised you a return visit.
+
+LOMAX [coming forward between Sarah and Undershaft] You'll find
+it awfully interesting. I've been through the Woolwich Arsenal;
+and it gives you a ripping feeling of security, you know, to
+think of the lot of beggars we could kill if it came to fighting.
+[To Undershaft, with sudden solemnity] Still, it must be rather
+an awful reflection for you, from the religious point of view as
+it were. You're getting on, you know, and all that.
+
+SARAH. You don't mind Cholly's imbecility, papa, do you?
+
+LOMAX [much taken aback] Oh I say!
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Mr Lomax looks at the matter in a very proper spirit,
+my dear.
+
+LOMAX. Just so. That's all I meant, I assure you.
+
+SARAH. Are you coming, Stephen?
+
+STEPHEN. Well, I am rather busy--er-- [Magnanimously] Oh well,
+yes: I'll come. That is, if there is room for me.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. I can take two with me in a little motor I am
+experimenting with for field use. You won't mind its being rather
+unfashionable. It's not painted yet; but it's bullet proof.
+
+LOMAX [appalled at the prospect of confronting Wilton Crescent in
+an unpainted motor] Oh I say!
+
+SARAH. The carriage for me, thank you. Barbara doesn't mind what
+she's seen in.
+
+LOMAX. I say, Dolly old chap: do you really mind the car being a
+guy? Because of course if you do I'll go in it. Still--
+
+CUSINS. I prefer it.
+
+LOMAX. Thanks awfully, old man. Come, Sarah. [He hurries out to
+secure his seat in the carriage. Sarah follows him].
+
+CUSINS. [moodily walking across to Lady Britomart's writing table]
+Why are we two coming to this Works Department of Hell? that is
+what I ask myself.
+
+BARBARA. I have always thought of it as a sort of pit where lost
+creatures with blackened faces stirred up smoky fires and were
+driven and tormented by my father? Is it like that, dad?
+
+UNDERSHAFT [scandalized] My dear! It is a spotlessly clean and
+beautiful hillside town.
+
+CUSINS. With a Methodist chapel? Oh do say there's a Methodist
+chapel.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. There are two: a primitive one and a sophisticated
+one. There is even an Ethical Society; but it is not much
+patronized, as my men are all strongly religious. In the High
+Explosives Sheds they object to the presence of Agnostics as
+unsafe.
+
+CUSINS. And yet they don't object to you!
+
+BARBARA. Do they obey all your orders?
+
+UNDERSHAFT. I never give them any orders. When I speak to one of
+them it is "Well, Jones, is the baby doing well? and has Mrs
+Jones made a good recovery?" "Nicely, thank you, sir." And that's
+all.
+
+CUSINS. But Jones has to be kept in order. How do you maintain
+discipline among your men?
+
+UNDERSHAFT. I don't. They do. You see, the one thing Jones won't
+stand is any rebellion from the man under him, or any assertion
+of social equality between the wife of the man with 4 shillings a
+week less than himself and Mrs Jones! Of course they all rebel
+against me, theoretically. Practically, every man of them keeps
+the man just below him in his place. I never meddle with them. I
+never bully them. I don't even bully Lazarus. I say that certain
+things are to be done; but I don't order anybody to do them. I
+don't say, mind you, that there is no ordering about and snubbing
+and even bullying. The men snub the boys and order them about;
+the carmen snub the sweepers; the artisans snub the unskilled
+laborers; the foremen drive and bully both the laborers and
+artisans; the assistant engineers find fault with the foremen;
+the chief engineers drop on the assistants; the departmental
+managers worry the chiefs; and the clerks have tall hats and
+hymnbooks and keep up the social tone by refusing to associate on
+equal terms with anybody. The result is a colossal profit, which
+comes to me.
+
+CUSINS [revolted] You really are a--well, what I was saying
+yesterday.
+
+BARBARA. What was he saying yesterday?
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Never mind, my dear. He thinks I have made you
+unhappy. Have I?
+
+BARBARA. Do you think I can be happy in this vulgar silly dress?
+I! who have worn the uniform. Do you understand what you have
+done to me? Yesterday I had a man's soul in my hand. I set him in
+the way of life with his face to salvation. But when we took your
+money he turned back to drunkenness and derision. [With intense
+conviction] I will never forgive you that. If I had a child, and
+you destroyed its body with your explosives--if you murdered
+Dolly with your horrible guns--I could forgive you if my
+forgiveness would open the gates of heaven to you. But to take a
+human soul from me, and turn it into the soul of a wolf! that is
+worse than any murder.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Does my daughter despair so easily? Can you strike a
+man to the heart and leave no mark on him?
+
+BARBARA [her face lighting up] Oh, you are right: he can never be
+lost now: where was my faith?
+
+CUSINS. Oh, clever clever devil!
+
+BARBARA. You may be a devil; but God speaks through you
+sometimes. [She takes her father's hands and kisses them]. You
+have given me back my happiness: I feel it deep down now, though
+my spirit is troubled.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. You have learnt something. That always feels at first
+as if you had lost something.
+
+BARBARA. Well, take me to the factory of death, and let me learn
+something more. There must be some truth or other behind all this
+frightful irony. Come, Dolly. [She goes out].
+
+CUSINS. My guardian angel! [To Undershaft] Avaunt! [He follows
+Barbara].
+
+STEPHEN [quietly, at the writing table] You must not mind Cusins,
+father. He is a very amiable good fellow; but he is a Greek
+scholar and naturally a little eccentric.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Ah, quite so. Thank you, Stephen. Thank you. [He goes
+out].
+
+Stephen smiles patronizingly; buttons his coat responsibly; and
+crosses the room to the door. Lady Britomart, dressed for
+out-of-doors, opens it before he reaches it. She looks round far
+the others; looks at Stephen; and turns to go without a word.
+
+STEPHEN [embarrassed] Mother--
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Don't be apologetic, Stephen. And don't forget
+that you have outgrown your mother. [She goes out].
+
+Perivale St Andrews lies between two Middlesex hills, half
+climbing the northern one. It is an almost smokeless town of
+white walls, roofs of narrow green slates or red tiles, tall
+trees, domes, campaniles, and slender chimney shafts, beautifully
+situated and beautiful in itself. The best view of it is obtained
+from the crest of a slope about half a mile to the east, where
+the high explosives are dealt with. The foundry lies hidden in
+the depths between, the tops of its chimneys sprouting like huge
+skittles into the middle distance. Across the crest runs a
+platform of concrete, with a parapet which suggests a
+fortification, because there is a huge cannon of the obsolete
+Woolwich Infant pattern peering across it at the town. The cannon
+is mounted on an experimental gun carriage: possibly the original
+model of the Undershaft disappearing rampart gun alluded to by
+Stephen. The parapet has a high step inside which serves as a
+seat.
+
+Barbara is leaning over the parapet, looking towards the town. On
+her right is the cannon; on her left the end of a shed raised on
+piles, with a ladder of three or four steps up to the door, which
+opens outwards and has a little wooden landing at the threshold,
+with a fire bucket in the corner of the landing. The parapet
+stops short of the shed, leaving a gap which is the beginning of
+the path down the hill through the foundry to the town. Behind
+the cannon is a trolley carrying a huge conical bombshell, with a
+red band painted on it. Further from the parapet, on the same
+side, is a deck chair, near the door of an office, which, like
+the sheds, is of the lightest possible construction.
+
+Cusins arrives by the path from the town.
+
+BARBARA. Well?
+
+CUSINS. Not a ray of hope. Everything perfect, wonderful, real.
+It only needs a cathedral to be a heavenly city instead of a
+hellish one.
+
+BARBARA. Have you found out whether they have done anything for
+old Peter Shirley.
+
+CUSINS. They have found him a job as gatekeeper and timekeeper.
+He's frightfully miserable. He calls the timekeeping brainwork,
+and says he isn't used to it; and his gate lodge is so splendid
+that he's ashamed to use the rooms, and skulks in the scullery.
+
+BARBARA. Poor Peter!
+
+Stephen arrives from the town. He carries a fieldglass.
+
+STEPHEN [enthusiastically] Have you two seen the place? Why did
+you leave us?
+
+CUSINS. I wanted to see everything I was not intended to see; and
+Barbara wanted to make the men talk.
+
+STEPHEN. Have you found anything discreditable?
+
+CUSINS. No. They call him Dandy Andy and are proud of his being a
+cunning old rascal; but it's all horribly, frightfully,
+immorally, unanswerably perfect.
+
+Sarah arrives.
+
+SARAH. Heavens! what a place! [She crosses to the trolley]. Did
+you see the nursing home!? [She sits down on the shell].
+
+STEPHEN. Did you see the libraries and schools!?
+
+SARAH. Did you see the ballroom and the banqueting chamber in the
+Town Hall!?
+
+STEPHEN. Have you gone into the insurance fund, the pension fund,
+the building society, the various applications of co-operation!?
+
+Undershaft comes from the office, with a sheaf of telegrams in
+his hands.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Well, have you seen everything? I'm sorry I was
+called away. [Indicating the telegrams] News from Manchuria.
+
+STEPHEN. Good news, I hope.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Very.
+
+STEPHEN. Another Japanese victory?
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Oh, I don't know. Which side wins does not concern us
+here. No: the good news is that the aerial battleship is a
+tremendous success. At the first trial it has wiped out a fort
+with three hundred soldiers in it.
+
+CUSINS [from the platform] Dummy soldiers?
+
+UNDERSHAFT. No: the real thing. [Cusins and Barbara exchange
+glances. Then Cusins sits on the step and buries his face in his
+hands. Barbara gravely lays her hand on his shoulder, and he
+looks up at her in a sort of whimsical desperation]. Well,
+Stephen, what do you think of the place?
+
+STEPHEN. Oh, magnificent. A perfect triumph of organization.
+Frankly, my dear father, I have been a fool: I had no idea of
+what it all meant--of the wonderful forethought, the power of
+organization, the administrative capacity, the financial genius,
+the colossal capital it represents. I have been repeating to
+myself as I came through your streets "Peace hath her victories
+no less renowned than War." I have only one misgiving about it
+all.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Out with it.
+
+STEPHEN. Well, I cannot help thinking that all this provision for
+every want of your workmen may sap their independence and weaken
+their sense of responsibility. And greatly as we enjoyed our tea
+at that splendid restaurant--how they gave us all that luxury and
+cake and jam and cream for threepence I really cannot imagine!--still
+you must remember that restaurants break up home life. Look at the
+continent, for instance! Are you sure so much pampering is really
+good for the men's characters?
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Well you see, my dear boy, when you are organizing
+civilization you have to make up your mind whether trouble and
+anxiety are good things or not. If you decide that they are,
+then, I take it, you simply don't organize civilization; and
+there you are, with trouble and anxiety enough to make us all
+angels! But if you decide the other way, you may as well go
+through with it. However, Stephen, our characters are safe here.
+A sufficient dose of anxiety is always provided by the fact that
+we may be blown to smithereens at any moment.
+
+SARAH. By the way, papa, where do you make the explosives?
+
+UNDERSHAFT. In separate little sheds, like that one. When one of
+them blows up, it costs very little; and only the people quite
+close to it are killed.
+
+Stephen, who is quite close to it, looks at it rather scaredly,
+and moves away quickly to the cannon. At the same moment the door
+of the shed is thrown abruptly open; and a foreman in overalls
+and list slippers comes out on the little landing and holds the
+door open for Lomax, who appears in the doorway.
+
+LOMAX [with studied coolness] My good fellow: you needn't get
+into a state of nerves. Nothing's going to happen to you; and I
+suppose it wouldn't be the end of the world if anything did. A
+little bit of British pluck is what you want, old chap. [He
+descends and strolls across to Sarah].
+
+UNDERSHAFT [to the foreman] Anything wrong, Bilton?
+
+BILTON [with ironic calm] Gentleman walked into the high
+explosives shed and lit a cigaret, sir: that's all.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Ah, quite so. [To Lomax] Do you happen to remember
+what you did with the match?
+
+LOMAX. Oh come! I'm not a fool. I took jolly good care to blow it
+out before I chucked it away.
+
+BILTON. The top of it was red hot inside, sir.
+
+LOMAX. Well, suppose it was! I didn't chuck it into any of your
+messes.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Think no more of it, Mr Lomax. By the way, would you
+mind lending me your matches?
+
+LOMAX [offering his box] Certainly.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Thanks. [He pockets the matches].
+
+LOMAX [lecturing to the company generally] You know, these high
+explosives don't go off like gunpowder, except when they're in a
+gun. When they're spread loose, you can put a match to them
+without the least risk: they just burn quietly like a bit of
+paper. [Warming to the scientific interest of the subject] Did
+you know that Undershaft? Have you ever tried?
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Not on a large scale, Mr Lomax. Bilton will give you
+a sample of gun cotton when you are leaving if you ask him. You
+can experiment with it at home. [Bilton looks puzzled].
+
+SARAH. Bilton will do nothing of the sort, papa. I suppose it's
+your business to blow up the Russians and Japs; but you might
+really stop short of blowing up poor Cholly. [Bilton gives it up
+and retires into the shed].
+
+LOMAX. My ownest, there is no danger. [He sits beside her on the
+shell].
+
+Lady Britomart arrives from the town with a bouquet.
+
+LADY BRITOMART [coming impetuously between Undershaft and the
+deck chair] Andrew: you shouldn't have let me see this place.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Why, my dear?
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Never mind why: you shouldn't have: that's all.
+To think of all that [indicating the town] being yours! and that
+you have kept it to yourself all these years!
+
+UNDERSHAFT. It does not belong to me. I belong to it. It is the
+Undershaft inheritance.
+
+LADY BRITOMART. It is not. Your ridiculous cannons and that noisy
+banging foundry may be the Undershaft inheritance; but all that
+plate and linen, all that furniture and those houses and orchards
+and gardens belong to us. They belong to me: they are not a man's
+business. I won't give them up. You must be out of your senses to
+throw them all away; and if you persist in such folly, I will
+call in a doctor.
+
+UNDERSHAFT [stooping to smell the bouquet] Where did you get the
+flowers, my dear?
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Your men presented them to me in your William
+Morris Labor Church.
+
+CUSINS [springing up] Oh! It needed only that. A Labor Church!
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Yes, with Morris's words in mosaic letters ten
+feet high round the dome. NO MAN IS GOOD ENOUGH TO BE ANOTHER
+MAN'S MASTER. The cynicism of it!
+
+UNDERSHAFT. It shocked the men at first, I am afraid. But now
+they take no more notice of it than of the ten commandments in
+church.
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Andrew: you are trying to put me off the subject
+of the inheritance by profane jokes. Well, you shan't. I don't
+ask it any longer for Stephen: he has inherited far too much of
+your perversity to be fit for it. But Barbara has rights as well
+as Stephen. Why should not Adolphus succeed to the inheritance? I
+could manage the town for him; and he can look after the cannons,
+if they are really necessary.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. I should ask nothing better if Adolphus were a
+foundling. He is exactly the sort of new blood that is wanted in
+English business. But he's not a foundling; and there's an end of
+it.
+
+CUSINS [diplomatically] Not quite. [They all turn and stare at
+him. He comes from the platform past the shed to Undershaft]. I
+think--Mind! I am not committing myself in any way as to my
+future course--but I think the foundling difficulty can be got
+over.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. What do you mean?
+
+CUSINS. Well, I have something to say which is in the nature of a
+confession.
+
+  SARAH.             }
+  LADY BRITOMART.    } Confession!
+  BARBARA.           }
+  STEPHEN.           }
+
+LOMAX. Oh I say!
+
+CUSINS. Yes, a confession. Listen, all. Until I met Barbara I
+thought myself in the main an honorable, truthful man, because I
+wanted the approval of my conscience more than I wanted anything
+else. But the moment I saw Barbara, I wanted her far more than
+the approval of my conscience.
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Adolphus!
+
+CUSINS. It is true. You accused me yourself, Lady Brit, of
+joining the Army to worship Barbara; and so I did. She bought my
+soul like a flower at a street corner; but she bought it for
+herself.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. What! Not for Dionysos or another?
+
+CUSINS. Dionysos and all the others are in herself. I adored what
+was divine in her, and was therefore a true worshipper. But I was
+romantic about her too. I thought she was a woman of the people,
+and that a marriage with a professor of Greek would be far beyond
+the wildest social ambitions of her rank.
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Adolphus!!
+
+LOMAX. Oh I say!!!
+
+CUSINS. When I learnt the horrible truth--
+
+LADY BRITOMART. What do you mean by the horrible truth, pray?
+
+CUSINS. That she was enormously rich; that her grandfather was an
+earl; that her father was the Prince of Darkness--
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Chut!
+
+CUSINS.--and that I was only an adventurer trying to catch a rich
+wife, then I stooped to deceive about my birth.
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Your birth! Now Adolphus, don't dare to make up a
+wicked story for the sake of these wretched cannons. Remember: I
+have seen photographs of your parents; and the Agent General for
+South Western Australia knows them personally and has assured me
+that they are most respectable married people.
+
+CUSINS. So they are in Australia; but here they are outcasts.
+Their marriage is legal in Australia, but not in England. My
+mother is my father's deceased wife's sister; and in this island
+I am consequently a foundling. [Sensation]. Is the subterfuge
+good enough, Machiavelli?
+
+UNDERSHAFT [thoughtfully] Biddy: this may be a way out of the
+difficulty.
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Stuff! A man can't make cannons any the better
+for being his own cousin instead of his proper self [she sits
+down in the deck chair with a bounce that expresses her downright
+contempt for their casuistry.]
+
+UNDERSHAFT [to Cusins] You are an educated man. That is against
+the tradition.
+
+CUSINS. Once in ten thousand times it happens that the schoolboy
+is a born master of what they try to teach him. Greek has not
+destroyed my mind: it has nourished it. Besides, I did not learn
+it at an English public school.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Hm! Well, I cannot afford to be too particular: you
+have cornered the foundling market. Let it pass. You are
+eligible, Euripides: you are eligible.
+
+BARBARA [coming from the platform and interposing between Cusins
+and Undershaft] Dolly: yesterday morning, when Stephen told us
+all about the tradition, you became very silent; and you have
+been strange and excited ever since. Were you thinking of your
+birth then?
+
+CUSINS. When the finger of Destiny suddenly points at a man in
+the middle of his breakfast, it makes him thoughtful. [Barbara
+turns away sadly and stands near her mother, listening perturbedly].
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Aha! You have had your eye on the business, my young
+friend, have you?
+
+CUSINS. Take care! There is an abyss of moral horror between me
+and your accursed aerial battleships.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Never mind the abyss for the present. Let us settle
+the practical details and leave your final decision open. You
+know that you will have to change your name. Do you object to
+that?
+
+CUSINS. Would any man named Adolphus--any man called Dolly!--object
+to be called something else?
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Good. Now, as to money! I propose to treat you
+handsomely from the beginning. You shall start at a thousand a
+year.
+
+CUSINS. [with sudden heat, his spectacles twinkling with
+mischief] A thousand! You dare offer a miserable thousand to
+the son-in-law of a millionaire! No, by Heavens, Machiavelli! you
+shall not cheat me. You cannot do without me; and I can do
+without you. I must have two thousand five hundred a year for two
+years. At the end of that time, if I am a failure, I go. But if I
+am a success, and stay on, you must give me the other five
+thousand.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. What other five thousand?
+
+CUSINS. To make the two years up to five thousand a year. The two
+thousand five hundred is only half pay in case I should turn out
+a failure. The third year I must have ten per cent on the
+profits.
+
+UNDERSHAFT [taken aback] Ten per cent! Why, man, do you know what
+my profits are?
+
+CUSINS. Enormous, I hope: otherwise I shall require twenty-five
+per cent.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. But, Mr Cusins, this is a serious matter of business.
+You are not bringing any capital into the concern.
+
+CUSINS. What! no capital! Is my mastery of Greek no capital? Is
+my access to the subtlest thought, the loftiest poetry yet
+attained by humanity, no capital? my character! my intellect! my
+life! my career! what Barbara calls my soul! are these no
+capital? Say another word; and I double my salary.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Be reasonable--
+
+CUSINS [peremptorily] Mr Undershaft: you have my terms. Take them
+or leave them.
+
+UNDERSHAFT [recovering himself] Very well. I note your terms; and
+I offer you half.
+
+CUSINS [disgusted] Half!
+
+UNDERSHAFT [firmly] Half.
+
+CUSINS. You call yourself a gentleman; and you offer me half!!
+
+UNDERSHAFT. I do not call myself a gentleman; but I offer you
+half.
+
+CUSINS. This to your future partner! your successor! your
+son-in-law!
+
+BARBARA. You are selling your own soul, Dolly, not mine. Leave me
+out of the bargain, please.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Come! I will go a step further for Barbara's sake. I
+will give you three fifths; but that is my last word.
+
+CUSINS. Done!
+
+LOMAX. Done in the eye. Why, _I_ only get eight hundred, you
+know.
+
+CUSINS. By the way, Mac, I am a classical scholar, not an
+arithmetical one. Is three fifths more than half or less?
+
+UNDERSHAFT. More, of course.
+
+CUSINS. I would have taken two hundred and fifty. How you can
+succeed in business when you are willing to pay all that money to
+a University don who is obviously not worth a junior clerk's
+wages!--well! What will Lazarus say?
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Lazarus is a gentle romantic Jew who cares for
+nothing but string quartets and stalls at fashionable theatres.
+He will get the credit of your rapacity in money matters, as he
+has hitherto had the credit of mine. You are a shark of the first
+order, Euripides. So much the better for the firm!
+
+BARBARA. Is the bargain closed, Dolly? Does your soul belong to
+him now?
+
+CUSINS. No: the price is settled: that is all. The real tug of
+war is still to come. What about the moral question?
+
+LADY BRITOMART. There is no moral question in the matter at all,
+Adolphus. You must simply sell cannons and weapons to people
+whose cause is right and just, and refuse them to foreigners and
+criminals.
+
+UNDERSHAFT [determinedly] No: none of that. You must keep the
+true faith of an Armorer, or you don't come in here.
+
+CUSINS. What on earth is the true faith of an Armorer?
+
+UNDERSHAFT. To give arms to all men who offer an honest price for
+them, without respect of persons or principles: to aristocrat and
+republican, to Nihilist and Tsar, to Capitalist and Socialist, to
+Protestant and Catholic, to burglar and policeman, to black man
+white man and yellow man, to all sorts and conditions, all
+nationalities, all faiths, all follies, all causes and all
+crimes. The first Undershaft wrote up in his shop IF GOD GAVE THE
+HAND, LET NOT MAN WITHHOLD THE SWORD. The second wrote up ALL
+HAVE THE RIGHT TO FIGHT: NONE HAVE THE RIGHT TO JUDGE. The third
+wrote up TO MAN THE WEAPON: TO HEAVEN THE VICTORY. The fourth had
+no literary turn; so he did not write up anything; but he sold
+cannons to Napoleon under the nose of George the Third. The fifth
+wrote up PEACE SHALL NOT PREVAIL SAVE WITH A SWORD IN HER HAND.
+The sixth, my master, was the best of all. He wrote up NOTHING IS
+EVER DONE IN THIS WORLD UNTIL MEN ARE PREPARED TO KILL ONE
+ANOTHER IF IT IS NOT DONE. After that, there was nothing left for
+the seventh to say. So he wrote up, simply, UNASHAMED.
+
+CUSINS. My good Machiavelli, I shall certainly write something up
+on the wall; only, as I shall write it in Greek, you won't be
+able to read it. But as to your Armorer's faith, if I take my
+neck out of the noose of my own morality I am not going to put it
+into the noose of yours. I shall sell cannons to whom I please
+and refuse them to whom I please. So there!
+
+UNDERSHAFT. From the moment when you become Andrew Undershaft,
+you will never do as you please again. Don't come here lusting
+for power, young man.
+
+CUSINS. If power were my aim I should not come here for it.
+YOU have no power.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. None of my own, certainly.
+
+CUSINS. I have more power than you, more will. You do not drive
+this place: it drives you. And what drives the place?
+
+UNDERSHAFT [enigmatically] A will of which I am a part.
+
+BARBARA [startled] Father! Do you know what you are saying; or
+are you laying a snare for my soul?
+
+CUSINS. Don't listen to his metaphysics, Barbara. The place is
+driven by the most rascally part of society, the money hunters,
+the pleasure hunters, the military promotion hunters; and he is
+their slave.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Not necessarily. Remember the Armorer's Faith. I will
+take an order from a good man as cheerfully as from a bad one. If
+you good people prefer preaching and shirking to buying my
+weapons and fighting the rascals, don't blame me. I can make
+cannons: I cannot make courage and conviction. Bah! You tire me,
+Euripides, with your morality mongering. Ask Barbara: SHE
+understands. [He suddenly takes Barbara's hands, and looks
+powerfully into her eyes]. Tell him, my love, what power really
+means.
+
+BARBARA [hypnotized] Before I joined the Salvation Army, I was in
+my own power; and the consequence was that I never knew what to
+do with myself. When I joined it, I had not time enough for all
+the things I had to do.
+
+UNDERSHAFT [approvingly] Just so. And why was that, do you
+suppose?
+
+BARBARA. Yesterday I should have said, because I was in the power
+of God. [She resumes her self-possession, withdrawing her hands
+from his with a power equal to his own]. But you came and showed
+me that I was in the power of Bodger and Undershaft. Today I
+feel--oh! how can I put it into words? Sarah: do you remember the
+earthquake at Cannes, when we were little children?--how little
+the surprise of the first shock mattered compared to the dread
+and horror of waiting for the second? That is how I feel in this
+place today. I stood on the rock I thought eternal; and without
+a word of warning it reeled and crumbled under me. I was safe
+with an infinite wisdom watching me, an army marching to
+Salvation with me; and in a moment, at a stroke of your pen in a
+cheque book, I stood alone; and the heavens were empty. That was
+the first shock of the earthquake: I am waiting for the second.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Come, come, my daughter! Don't make too much of your
+little tinpot tragedy. What do we do here when we spend years of
+work and thought and thousands of pounds of solid cash on a new
+gun or an aerial battleship that turns out just a hairsbreadth
+wrong after all? Scrap it. Scrap it without wasting another hour
+or another pound on it. Well, you have made for yourself
+something that you call a morality or a religion or what not. It
+doesn't fit the facts. Well, scrap it. Scrap it and get one that
+does fit. That is what is wrong with the world at present. It
+scraps its obsolete steam engines and dynamos; but it won't scrap
+its old prejudices and its old moralities and its old religions
+and its old political constitutions. What's the result? In
+machinery it does very well; but in morals and religion and
+politics it is working at a loss that brings it nearer bankruptcy
+every year. Don't persist in that folly. If your old religion
+broke down yesterday, get a newer and a better one for tomorrow.
+
+BARBARA. Oh how gladly I would take a better one to my soul! But
+you offer me a worse one. [Turning on him with sudden vehemence].
+Justify yourself: show me some light through the darkness of this
+dreadful place, with its beautifully clean workshops, and
+respectable workmen, and model homes.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Cleanliness and respectability do not need
+justification, Barbara: they justify themselves. I see no
+darkness here, no dreadfulness. In your Salvation shelter I saw
+poverty, misery, cold and hunger. You gave them bread and treacle
+and dreams of heaven. I give from thirty shillings a week to
+twelve thousand a year. They find their own dreams; but I look
+after the drainage.
+
+BARBARA. And their souls?
+
+UNDERSHAFT. I save their souls just as I saved yours.
+
+BARBARA [revolted] You saved my soul! What do you mean?
+
+UNDERSHAFT. I fed you and clothed you and housed you. I took care
+that you should have money enough to live handsomely--more than
+enough; so that you could be wasteful, careless, generous. That
+saved your soul from the seven deadly sins.
+
+BARBARA [bewildered] The seven deadly sins!
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Yes, the deadly seven. [Counting on his fingers]
+Food, clothing, firing, rent, taxes, respectability and children.
+Nothing can lift those seven millstones from Man's neck but
+money; and the spirit cannot soar until the millstones are
+lifted. I lifted them from your spirit. I enabled Barbara to
+become Major Barbara; and I saved her from the crime of poverty.
+
+CUSINS. Do you call poverty a crime?
+
+UNDERSHAFT. The worst of crimes. All the other crimes are virtues
+beside it: all the other dishonors are chivalry itself by
+comparison. Poverty blights whole cities; spreads horrible
+pestilences; strikes dead the very souls of all who come within
+sight, sound or smell of it. What you call crime is nothing: a
+murder here and a theft there, a blow now and a curse then: what
+do they matter? they are only the accidents and illnesses of
+life: there are not fifty genuine professional criminals in
+London. But there are millions of poor people, abject people,
+dirty people, ill fed, ill clothed people. They poison us morally
+and physically: they kill the happiness of society: they force us
+to do away with our own liberties and to organize unnatural
+cruelties for fear they should rise against us and drag us down
+into their abyss. Only fools fear crime: we all fear poverty.
+Pah! [turning on Barbara] you talk of your half-saved ruffian in
+West Ham: you accuse me of dragging his soul back to perdition.
+Well, bring him to me here; and I will drag his soul back again
+to salvation for you. Not by words and dreams; but by thirty-eight
+shillings a week, a sound house in a handsome street, and a permanent
+job. In three weeks he will have a fancy waistcoat; in three months
+a tall hat and a chapel sitting; before the end of the year he
+will shake hands with a duchess at a Primrose League meeting, and
+join the Conservative Party.
+
+BARBARA. And will he be the better for that?
+
+UNDERSHAFT. You know he will. Don't be a hypocrite, Barbara. He
+will be better fed, better housed, better clothed, better
+behaved; and his children will be pounds heavier and bigger. That
+will be better than an American cloth mattress in a shelter,
+chopping firewood, eating bread and treacle, and being forced to
+kneel down from time to time to thank heaven for it: knee drill,
+I think you call it. It is cheap work converting starving men
+with a Bible in one hand and a slice of bread in the other. I
+will undertake to convert West Ham to Mahometanism on the same
+terms. Try your hand on my men: their souls are hungry because
+their bodies are full.
+
+BARBARA. And leave the east end to starve?
+
+UNDERSHAFT [his energetic tone dropping into one of bitter and
+brooding remembrance] I was an east ender. I moralized and
+starved until one day I swore that I would be a fullfed free man
+at all costs--that nothing should stop me except a bullet,
+neither reason nor morals nor the lives of other men. I said
+"Thou shalt starve ere I starve"; and with that word I became
+free and great. I was a dangerous man until I had my will: now I
+am a useful, beneficent, kindly person. That is the history of
+most self-made millionaires, I fancy. When it is the history of
+every Englishman we shall have an England worth living in.
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Stop making speeches, Andrew. This is not the
+place for them.
+
+UNDERSHAFT [punctured] My dear: I have no other means of
+conveying my ideas.
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Your ideas are nonsense. You got oil because you
+were selfish and unscrupulous.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Not at all. I had the strongest scruples about
+poverty and starvation. Your moralists are quite unscrupulous
+about both: they make virtues of them. I had rather be a thief
+than a pauper. I had rather be a murderer than a slave. I don't
+want to be either; but if you force the alternative on me, then,
+by Heaven, I'll choose the braver and more moral one. I hate
+poverty and slavery worse than any other crimes whatsoever. And
+let me tell you this. Poverty and slavery have stood up for
+centuries to your sermons and leading articles: they will not
+stand up to my machine guns. Don't preach at them: don't reason
+with them. Kill them.
+
+BARBARA. Killing. Is that your remedy for everything?
+
+UNDERSHAFT. It is the final test of conviction, the only lever
+strong enough to overturn a social system, the only way of saying
+Must. Let six hundred and seventy fools loose in the street; and
+three policemen can scatter them. But huddle them together in a
+certain house in Westminster; and let them go through certain
+ceremonies and call themselves certain names until at last they
+get the courage to kill; and your six hundred and seventy fools
+become a government. Your pious mob fills up ballot papers and
+imagines it is governing its masters; but the ballot paper that
+really governs is the paper that has a bullet wrapped up in it.
+
+CUSINS. That is perhaps why, like most intelligent people, I
+never vote.
+
+UNDERSHAFT Vote! Bah! When you vote, you only change the names of
+the cabinet. When you shoot, you pull down governments,
+inaugurate new epochs, abolish old orders and set up new. Is that
+historically true, Mr Learned Man, or is it not?
+
+CUSINS. It is historically true. I loathe having to admit it. I
+repudiate your sentiments. I abhor your nature. I defy you in
+every possible way. Still, it is true. But it ought not to be
+true.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Ought, ought, ought, ought, ought! Are you going to
+spend your life saying ought, like the rest of our moralists?
+Turn your oughts into shalls, man. Come and make explosives with
+me. Whatever can blow men up can blow society up. The history of
+the world is the history of those who had courage enough to
+embrace this truth. Have you the courage to embrace it, Barbara?
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Barbara, I positively forbid you to listen to
+your father's abominable wickedness. And you, Adolphus, ought to
+know better than to go about saying that wrong things are true.
+What does it matter whether they are true if they are wrong?
+
+UNDERSHAFT. What does it matter whether they are wrong if they
+are true?
+
+LADY BRITOMART [rising] Children: come home instantly. Andrew: I
+am exceedingly sorry I allowed you to call on us. You are
+wickeder than ever. Come at once.
+
+BARBARA [shaking her head] It's no use running away from wicked
+people, mamma.
+
+LADY BRITOMART. It is every use. It shows your disapprobation of
+them.
+
+BARBARA. It does not save them.
+
+LADY BRITOMART. I can see that you are going to disobey me.
+Sarah: are you coming home or are you not?
+
+SARAH. I daresay it's very wicked of papa to make cannons; but I
+don't think I shall cut him on that account.
+
+LOMAX [pouring oil on the troubled waters] The fact is, you know,
+there is a certain amount of tosh about this notion of wickedness.
+It doesn't work. You must look at facts. Not that I would say a
+word in favor of anything wrong; but then, you see, all sorts of
+chaps are always doing all sorts of things; and we have to fit
+them in somehow, don't you know. What I mean is that you can't
+go cutting everybody; and that's about what it comes to. [Their
+rapt attention to his eloquence makes him nervous] Perhaps I
+don't make myself clear.
+
+LADY BRITOMART. You are lucidity itself, Charles. Because Andrew
+is successful and has plenty of money to give to Sarah, you will
+flatter him and encourage him in his wickedness.
+
+LOMAX [unruffled] Well, where the carcase is, there will the
+eagles be gathered, don't you know. [To Undershaft] Eh? What?
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Precisely. By the way, may I call you Charles?
+
+LOMAX. Delighted. Cholly is the usual ticket.
+
+UNDERSHAFT [to Lady Britomart] Biddy--
+
+LADY BRITOMART [violently] Don't dare call me Biddy. Charles
+Lomax: you are a fool. Adolphus Cusins: you are a Jesuit.
+Stephen: you are a prig. Barbara: you are a lunatic. Andrew: you
+are a vulgar tradesman. Now you all know my opinion; and my
+conscience is clear, at all events [she sits down again with a
+vehemence that almost wrecks the chair].
+
+UNDERSHAFT. My dear, you are the incarnation of morality. [She
+snorts]. Your conscience is clear and your duty done when you
+have called everybody names. Come, Euripides! it is getting late;
+and we all want to get home. Make up your mind.
+
+CUSINS. Understand this, you old demon--
+
+LADY BRITOMART. Adolphus!
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Let him alone, Biddy. Proceed, Euripides.
+
+CUSINS. You have me in a horrible dilemma. I want Barbara.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Like all young men, you greatly exaggerate the
+difference between one young woman and another.
+
+BARBARA. Quite true, Dolly.
+
+CUSINS. I also want to avoid being a rascal.
+
+UNDERSHAFT [with biting contempt] You lust for personal
+righteousness, for self-approval, for what you call a good
+conscience, for what Barbara calls salvation, for what I call
+patronizing people who are not so lucky as yourself.
+
+CUSINS. I do not: all the poet in me recoils from being a good
+man. But there are things in me that I must reckon with: pity--
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Pity! The scavenger of misery.
+
+CUSINS. Well, love.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. I know. You love the needy and the outcast: you love
+the oppressed races, the negro, the Indian ryot, the Pole, the
+Irishman. Do you love the Japanese? Do you love the Germans? Do
+you love the English?
+
+CUSINS. No. Every true Englishman detests the English. We are the
+wickedest nation on earth; and our success is a moral horror.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. That is what comes of your gospel of love, is it?
+
+CUSINS. May I not love even my father-in-law?
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Who wants your love, man? By what right do you take
+the liberty of offering it to me? I will have your due heed and
+respect, or I will kill you. But your love! Damn your impertinence!
+
+CUSINS [grinning] I may not be able to control my affections, Mac.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. You are fencing, Euripides. You are weakening: your
+grip is slipping. Come! try your last weapon. Pity and love have
+broken in your hand: forgiveness is still left.
+
+CUSINS. No: forgiveness is a beggar's refuge. I am with you
+there: we must pay our debts.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Well said. Come! you will suit me. Remember the words
+of Plato.
+
+CUSINS [starting] Plato! You dare quote Plato to me!
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Plato says, my friend, that society cannot be saved
+until either the Professors of Greek take to making gunpowder, or
+else the makers of gunpowder become Professors of Greek.
+
+CUSINS. Oh, tempter, cunning tempter!
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Come! choose, man, choose.
+
+CUSINS. But perhaps Barbara will not marry me if I make the wrong
+choice.
+
+BARBARA. Perhaps not.
+
+CUSINS [desperately perplexed] You hear--
+
+BARBARA. Father: do you love nobody?
+
+UNDERSHAFT. I love my best friend.
+
+LADY BRITOMART. And who is that, pray?
+
+UNDERSHAFT. My bravest enemy. That is the man who keeps me up to
+the mark.
+
+CUSINS. You know, the creature is really a sort of poet in his
+way. Suppose he is a great man, after all!
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Suppose you stop talking and make up your mind, my
+young friend.
+
+CUSINS. But you are driving me against my nature. I hate war.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Hatred is the coward's revenge for being intimidated.
+Dare you make war on war? Here are the means: my friend Mr Lomax
+is sitting on them.
+
+LOMAX [springing up] Oh I say! You don't mean that this thing is
+loaded, do you? My ownest: come off it.
+
+SARAH [sitting placidly on the shell] If I am to be blown up, the
+more thoroughly it is done the better. Don't fuss, Cholly.
+
+LOMAX [to Undershaft, strongly remonstrant] Your own daughter,
+you know.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. So I see. [To Cusins] Well, my friend, may we expect
+you here at six tomorrow morning?
+
+CUSINS [firmly] Not on any account. I will see the whole
+establishment blown up with its own dynamite before I will get up
+at five. My hours are healthy, rational hours eleven to five.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Come when you please: before a week you will come at
+six and stay until I turn you out for the sake of your health.
+[Calling] Bilton! [He turns to Lady Britomart, who rises]. My
+dear: let us leave these two young people to themselves for a
+moment. [Bilton comes from the shed]. I am going to take you
+through the gun cotton shed.
+
+BILTON [barring the way] You can't take anything explosive in
+here, Sir.
+
+LADY BRITOMART. What do you mean? Are you alluding to me?
+
+BILTON [unmoved] No, ma'am. Mr Undershaft has the other
+gentleman's matches in his pocket.
+
+LADY BRITOMART [abruptly] Oh! I beg your pardon. [She goes into
+the shed].
+
+UNDERSHAFT. Quite right, Bilton, quite right: here you are. [He
+gives Bilton the box of matches]. Come, Stephen. Come, Charles.
+Bring Sarah. [He passes into the shed].
+
+Bilton opens the box and deliberately drops the matches into the
+fire-bucket.
+
+LOMAX. Oh I say! [Bilton stolidly hands him the empty box].
+Infernal nonsense! Pure scientific ignorance! [He goes in].
+
+SARAH. Am I all right, Bilton?
+
+BILTON. You'll have to put on list slippers, miss: that's all.
+We've got em inside. [She goes in].
+
+STEPHEN [very seriously to Cusins] Dolly, old fellow, think.
+Think before you decide. Do you feel that you are a sufficiently
+practical man? It is a huge undertaking, an enormous responsibility.
+All this mass of business will be Greek to you.
+
+CUSINS. Oh, I think it will be much less difficult than Greek.
+
+STEPHEN. Well, I just want to say this before I leave you to
+yourselves. Don't let anything I have said about right and wrong
+prejudice you against this great chance in life. I have satisfied
+myself that the business is one of the highest character and a
+credit to our country. [Emotionally] I am very proud of my
+father. I-- [Unable to proceed, he presses Cusins' hand and goes
+hastily into the shed, followed by Bilton].
+
+Barbara and Cusins, left alone together, look at one another
+silently.
+
+CUSINS. Barbara: I am going to accept this offer.
+
+BARBARA. I thought you would.
+
+CUSINS. You understand, don't you, that I had to decide without
+consulting you. If I had thrown the burden of the choice on you,
+you would sooner or later have despised me for it.
+
+BARBARA. Yes: I did not want you to sell your soul for me any
+more than for this inheritance.
+
+CUSINS. It is not the sale of my soul that troubles me: I have
+sold it too often to care about that. I have sold it for a
+professorship. I have sold it for an income. I have sold it to
+escape being imprisoned for refusing to pay taxes for hangmen's
+ropes and unjust wars and things that I abhor. What is all human
+conduct but the daily and hourly sale of our souls for trifles?
+What I am now selling it for is neither money nor position nor
+comfort, but for reality and for power.
+
+BARBARA. You know that you will have no power, and that he has
+none.
+
+CUSINS. I know. It is not for myself alone. I want to make power
+for the world.
+
+BARBARA. I want to make power for the world too; but it must be
+spiritual power.
+
+CUSINS. I think all power is spiritual: these cannons will not go
+off by themselves. I have tried to make spiritual power by
+teaching Greek. But the world can never be really touched by a
+dead language and a dead civilization. The people must have
+power; and the people cannot have Greek. Now the power that is
+made here can be wielded by all men.
+
+BARBARA. Power to burn women's houses down and kill their sons
+and tear their husbands to pieces.
+
+CUSINS. You cannot have power for good without having power for
+evil too. Even mother's milk nourishes murderers as well as
+heroes. This power which only tears men's bodies to pieces has
+never been so horribly abused as the intellectual power, the
+imaginative power, the poetic, religious power that can enslave
+men's souls. As a teacher of Greek I gave the intellectual man
+weapons against the common man. I now want to give the common man
+weapons against the intellectual man. I love the common people. I
+want to arm them against the lawyer, the doctor, the priest, the
+literary man, the professor, the artist, and the politician, who,
+once in authority, are the most dangerous, disastrous, and
+tyrannical of all the fools, rascals, and impostors. I want a
+democratic power strong enough to force the intellectual
+oligarchy to use its genius for the general good or else perish.
+
+BARBARA. Is there no higher power than that [pointing to the
+shell]?
+
+CUSINS. Yes: but that power can destroy the higher powers just as
+a tiger can destroy a man: therefore man must master that power
+first. I admitted this when the Turks and Greeks were last at
+war. My best pupil went out to fight for Hellas. My parting gift
+to him was not a copy of Plato's Republic, but a revolver and a
+hundred Undershaft cartridges. The blood of every Turk he shot--if
+he shot any--is on my head as well as on Undershaft's. That act
+committed me to this place for ever. Your father's challenge has
+beaten me. Dare I make war on war? I dare. I must. I will. And
+now, is it all over between us?
+
+BARBARA [touched by his evident dread of her answer] Silly baby
+Dolly! How could it be?
+
+CUSINS [overjoyed] Then you--you--you-- Oh for my drum! [He
+flourishes imaginary drumsticks].
+
+BARBARA [angered by his levity] Take care, Dolly, take care. Oh,
+if only I could get away from you and from father and from it
+all! if I could have the wings of a dove and fly away to heaven!
+
+CUSINS. And leave me!
+
+BARBARA. Yes, you, and all the other naughty mischievous children
+of men. But I can't. I was happy in the Salvation Army for a
+moment. I escaped from the world into a paradise of enthusiasm
+and prayer and soul saving; but the moment our money ran short,
+it all came back to Bodger: it was he who saved our people: he,
+and the Prince of Darkness, my papa. Undershaft and Bodger: their
+hands stretch everywhere: when we feed a starving fellow
+creature, it is with their bread, because there is no other
+bread; when we tend the sick, it is in the hospitals they endow;
+if we turn from the churches they build, we must kneel on the
+stones of the streets they pave. As long as that lasts, there is
+no getting away from them. Turning our backs on Bodger and
+Undershaft is turning our backs on life.
+
+CUSINS. I thought you were determined to turn your back on the
+wicked side of life.
+
+BARBARA. There is no wicked side: life is all one. And I never
+wanted to shirk my share in whatever evil must be endured,
+whether it be sin or suffering. I wish I could cure you of
+middle-class ideas, Dolly.
+
+CUSINS [gasping] Middle cl--! A snub! A social snub to ME! from
+the daughter of a foundling!
+
+BARBARA. That is why I have no class, Dolly: I come straight out
+of the heart of the whole people. If I were middle-class I should
+turn my back on my father's business; and we should both live in
+an artistic drawingroom, with you reading the reviews in one
+corner, and I in the other at the piano, playing Schumann: both
+very superior persons, and neither of us a bit of use. Sooner
+than that, I would sweep out the guncotton shed, or be one of
+Bodger's barmaids. Do you know what would have happened if you
+had refused papa's offer?
+
+CUSINS. I wonder!
+
+BARBARA. I should have given you up and married the man who
+accepted it. After all, my dear old mother has more sense than
+any of you. I felt like her when I saw this place--felt that I
+must have it--that never, never, never could I let it go; only
+she thought it was the houses and the kitchen ranges and the
+linen and china, when it was really all the human souls to be
+saved: not weak souls in starved bodies, crying with gratitude
+or a scrap of bread and treacle, but fullfed, quarrelsome,
+snobbish, uppish creatures, all standing on their little rights
+and dignities, and thinking that my father ought to be greatly
+obliged to them for making so much money for him--and so he
+ought. That is where salvation is really wanted. My father shall
+never throw it in my teeth again that my converts were bribed
+with bread. [She is transfigured]. I have got rid of the bribe
+of bread. I have got rid of the bribe of heaven. Let God's work
+be done for its own sake: the work he had to create us to do
+because it cannot be done except by living men and women. When I
+die, let him be in my debt, not I in his; and let me forgive him
+as becomes a woman of my rank.
+
+CUSINS. Then the way of life lies through the factory of death?
+
+BARBARA. Yes, through the raising of hell to heaven and of man to
+God, through the unveiling of an eternal light in the Valley of
+The Shadow. [Seizing him with both hands] Oh, did you think my
+courage would never come back? did you believe that I was a
+deserter? that I, who have stood in the streets, and taken my
+people to my heart, and talked of the holiest and greatest things
+with them, could ever turn back and chatter foolishly to
+fashionable people about nothing in a drawingroom? Never, never,
+never, never: Major Barbara will die with the colors. Oh! and I
+have my dear little Dolly boy still; and he has found me my place
+and my work. Glory Hallelujah! [She kisses him].
+
+CUSINS. My dearest: consider my delicate health. I cannot stand
+as much happiness as you can.
+
+BARBARA. Yes: it is not easy work being in love with me, is it?
+But it's good for you. [She runs to the shed, and calls,
+childlike] Mamma! Mamma! [Bilton comes out of the shed, followed
+by Undershaft]. I want Mamma.
+
+UNDERSHAFT. She is taking off her list slippers, dear. [He passes
+on to Cusins]. Well? What does she say?
+
+CUSINS. She has gone right up into the skies.
+
+LADY BRITOMART [coming from the shed and stopping on the steps,
+obstructing Sarah, who follows with Lomax. Barbara clutches like
+a baby at her mother's skirt]. Barbara: when will you learn to be
+independent and to act and think for yourself? I know as well as
+possible what that cry of "Mamma, Mamma," means. Always running
+to me!
+
+SARAH [touching Lady Britomart's ribs with her finger tips and
+imitating a bicycle horn] Pip! Pip!
+
+LADY BRITOMART [highly indignant] How dare you say Pip! pip! to
+me, Sarah? You are both very naughty children. What do you want,
+Barbara?
+
+BARBARA. I want a house in the village to live in with Dolly.
+[Dragging at the skirt] Come and tell me which one to take.
+
+UNDERSHAFT [to Cusins] Six o'clock tomorrow morning, my young
+friend.
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 3790 ***