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BURGE-LUBIN. I suppose it means that we shall have to amend the Act. BARNABAS. Amend my Act! Monstrous! BURGE-LUBIN. But we must. We cant ask people to go on working until they are forty-three unless our figures are unchallengeable. You know what a row there was over those last three years, and how nearly the too-old-at-forty people won.
BURGE-LUBIN. Why shouldn't they, if they want to? BARNABAS. They don't want to. They will do it in cold blood because their children will live three hundred years. It mustnt be allowed. CONFUCIUS. You cannot prevent it. There is no law that gives you power to interfere with them. BARNABAS. If they force me to it I will obtain legislation against marriages above the age of seventy-eight.
CONFUCIUS. All cases that were dangerous to the governing classes were tried in the Star Chamber or by Court Martial, except when the prisoner was not tried at all, but executed after calling him names enough to make him unpopular. BURGE-LUBIN. Oh, bother! You may be right in these little details; but in the large we have managed to hold our own as a great race.
Only strangers are impartial. BURGE-LUBIN. It ends in the public services being so good that the Government has nothing to do but think. CONFUCIUS. Were it otherwise, the Government would have too much to do to think. BURGE-LUBIN. Is that any excuse for the English people electing a parliament of lunatics? CONFUCIUS. The English people always did elect parliaments of lunatics.
When I want to get anything done at the Health Ministry I do not come to you: I go to the black lady who has been the real president during your present term of office, or to Confucius, who goes on for ever while presidents come and presidents go. BURGE-LUBIN. This is outrageous. This is treason to the white race.
It may not work in this case. BURGE-LUBIN. English be hanged! It's common sense. You know, those two people got us hypnotized: not a doubt of it. They must have been kidding us. They were, werent they? CONFUCIUS. You looked into that woman's face; and you believed. BURGE-LUBIN. Just so. Thats where she had me. I shouldn't have believed her a bit if she'd turned her back to me.
That is the explanation of the three hundred years, Mr Secretary. CONFUCIUS. It is very ingenious, Mr Archbishop. And very well told. BURGE-LUBIN. Of course you understand that I don't for a moment suggest the very faintest doubt of your absolute veracity, Archbishop. You know that, don't you? THE ARCHBISHOP. Quite, Mr President. Only you don't believe me: that is all. I do not expect you to.
Have you read a very interesting book by the librarian of the Biological Society suggesting that the future of the world lies with the Mulatto? THE ARCHBISHOP. Yes: our duty is pretty clear. MRS LUTESTRING. Have you time to come home with me and discuss the matter? Burge: you understand, don't you? BURGE-LUBIN. No. What is it? BARNABAS. These two are going to marry.
BURGE-LUBIN. Nobody, dear lad, nobody. Dont fly out at me. It is evident that you have not read the American's book. BARNABAS. Dont tell me that you have, or that you have read any book except a novel for the last twenty years; for I wont believe you. BURGE-LUBIN. Quite right, dear old fellow: I havnt read it. But I have read what The Times Literary Supplement says about it.
CONFUCIUS. Her number is BURGE-LUBIN. I know it. Burge-Lubin operates his switchboard as before. The screen vanishes: and a dainty room with a bed, a wardrobe, and a dressing-table with a mirror and a switch on it, appears. Seated at it a handsome negress is trying on a brilliant head scarf. Her dressing-gown is thrown back from her shoulders to her chair.
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