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I am the President, speaking to the Accountant General. What are you dreaming of? BURGE-LUBIN. Since you take it that way, I will go in your place. It's a pity, because, you see, this American thinks you are the greatest living authority on the duration of human life; and What do you mean? I am the greatest living authority on the duration of human life. Who dares dispute it?
Have you, Mr Archbishop, any ground for assuming, as you seem to do, that what has happened to you has not happened to other people as well? BURGE-LUBIN. Yes, by George! I never thought of that. THE ARCHBISHOP. I have never met any case but my own. CONFUCIUS. How do you know? THE ARCHBISHOP. Well, no one has ever told me that they were in this extraordinary position.
I am not a barbarian. BURGE-LUBIN. You mean that I am? CONFUCIUS. That is evident. BURGE-LUBIN. How? CONFUCIUS. People like you. They like cheerful goodnatured barbarians. They have elected you President five times in succession. They will elect you five times more. I like you. You are better company than a dog or a horse because you can speak. BURGE-LUBIN. Am I a barbarian because you like me?
BARNABAS. Well, wave had moving pictures of all four put on the screen today for this American; and they and the Archbishop are the same man. Now tell me I am mad. BURGE-LUBIN. I do tell you you are mad. Stark raving mad. BARNABAS. Am I to believe my own eyes or am I not? BURGE-LUBIN. You can do as you please. THE WOMAN'S VOICE. The Archbishop of York, to see the President.
We have no power to prevent the Master of the Records from publishing this discovery made in his department. We cannot silence the American who can silence an American? nor the people who were there today to receive him. Fortunately, a film can prove nothing but a resemblance. BURGE-LUBIN. Thats very true. After all, the whole thing is confounded nonsense, isnt it? That is the English method.
CONFUCIUS. The only power your parliament ever had was the power of withholding supplies from the king. BURGE-LUBIN. Precisely. That great Englishman Simon de Montfort CONFUCIUS. He was not an Englishman: he was a Frenchman. He imported parliaments from France. CONFUCIUS. The king and his loyal subjects killed Simon for forcing his French parliament on them.
The first thing British parliaments always did was to grant supplies to the king for life with enthusiastic expressions of loyalty, lest they should have any real power, and be expected to do something. BURGE-LUBIN. Look here, Confucius: you know more history than I do, of course; but democracy CONFUCIUS. An institution peculiar to China. And it was never really a success there.
But a little risky, isnt it? THE NEGRESS. Risky! I thought you were afraid of nothing. BURGE-LUBIN. I am not exactly afraid; but Oh, please. BURGE-LUBIN. The fact is, I have been behaving very recklessly for some time past under the impression that my life would be so short that it was not worth bothering about. But I have just learnt that I may live well, much longer than I expected.
Today the Record Office is entertaining him with a display of the cinematographic records of all the eminent Englishmen who have lost their lives by drowning since the cinema was invented. Why not go to see it if you are at a loss for something to do? BURGE-LUBIN. What earthly interest is there in looking at a moving picture of a lot of people merely because they were drowned?
When I was a child I was dominated and intimidated by people whom I now know to have been weaker and sillier than I, because there was some mysterious quality in their mere age that overawed me. I confess that, though I have kept up appearances, I have always been afraid of the Archbishop. BURGE-LUBIN. Between ourselves, Confucius, so have I. CONFUCIUS. It is this that convinced me.
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