JUGGINS.  I realize my advantages, sir; but Ive private reasons--

GILBEY.  [cutting him short angrily and retiring to the hearthrug in
dudgeon]  Oh, I know.  Very well:  go.  The sooner the better.

MRS GILBEY.  Oh, not until we're suited.  He must stay his month.

GILBEY.  [sarcastic]  Do you want to lose him his character, Maria?
Do you think I dont see what it is?  We're prison folk now.  Weve been
in the police court.  [To Juggins]  Well, I suppose you know your
own business best.  I take your notice:  you can go when your month is
up, or sooner, if you like.

JUGGINS.  Believe me, sir--

GILBEY.  Thats enough:  I dont want any excuses.  I dont blame you.
You can go downstairs now, if youve nothing else to trouble me about.

JUGGINS.  I really cant leave it at that, sir.  I assure you Ive no
objection to young Mr Gilbey's going to prison.  You may do six months
yourself, sir, and welcome, without a word of remonstrance from me.
I'm leaving solely because my brother, who has suffered a bereavement,
and feels lonely, begs me to spend a few months with him until he gets
over it.

GILBEY.  And is he to keep you all that time? or are you to spend your
savings in comforting him?  Have some sense, man:  how can you afford
such things?

JUGGINS.  My brother can afford to keep me, sir.  The truth is, he
objects to my being in service.

GILBEY.  Is that any reason why you should be dependent on him?  Dont
do it, Juggins:  pay your own way like an honest lad; and dont eat
your brother's bread while youre able to earn your own.

JUGGINS.  There is sound sense in that, sir.  But unfortunately it is
a tradition in my family that the younger brothers should spunge to a
considerable extent on the eldest.

GILBEY.  Then the sooner that tradition is broken, the better, my man.

JUGGINS.  A Radical sentiment, sir.  But an excellent one.

GILBEY.  Radical!  What do you mean?  Dont you begin to take
liberties, Juggins, now that you know we're loth to part with you.
Your brother isnt a duke, you know.

JUGGINS.  Unfortunately, he is, sir.

GILBEY.     |   What!    |
            |            | _together_
            |            |
MRS GILBEY. |   Juggins! |

JUGGINS.  Excuse me, sir:  the bell.  [He goes out].

GILBEY.  [overwhelmed]  Maria:  did you understand him to say his
brother was a duke?

MRS GILBEY.  Fancy his condescending!  Perhaps if youd offer to raise
his wages and treat him as one of the family, he'd stay.

GILBEY.  And have my own servant above me!  Not me.  Whats the world
coming to?  Heres Bobby and--

JUGGINS.  [entering and announcing]  Mr and Mrs Knox.

_The Knoxes come in.  Juggins takes two chairs from the wall and
places them at the table, between the host and hostess.  Then he
withdraws._

MRS GILBEY.  [to Mrs Knox]  How are you, dear?

MRS KNOX.  Nicely, thank you.  Good evening, Mr Gilbey.  [They shake
hands; and she takes the chair nearest Mrs Gilbey.  Mr Knox takes the
other chair].

GILBEY.  [sitting down]  I was just saying, Knox, What is the world
coming to?

KNOX.  [appealing to his wife]  What was I saying myself only this
morning?

MRS KNOX.  This is a strange time.  I was never one to talk about the
end of the world; but look at the things that have happened!

KNOX.  Earthquakes!

GILBEY.  San Francisco!

MRS GILBEY.  Jamaica!

KNOX.  Martinique!

GILBEY.  Messina!

MRS GILBEY.  The plague in China!

MRS KNOX.  The floods in France!

GILBEY.  My Bobby in Wormwood Scrubbs!

KNOX.  Margaret in Holloway!

GILBEY.  And now my footman tells me his brother's a duke!

KNOX.       |   No!
            |
MRS KNOX.   | Whats that?

GILBEY.  Just before he let you in.  A duke!  Here has everything been
respectable from the beginning of the world, as you may say, to the
present day; and all of a sudden everything is turned upside down.

MRS KNOX.  It's like in the book of Revelations.  But I do say that
unless people have happiness within themselves, all the earthquakes,
all the floods, and all the prisons in the world cant make them really
happy.

KNOX.  It isnt alone the curious things that are happening, but the
unnatural way people are taking them.  Why, theres Margaret been in
prison, and she hasnt time to go to all the invitations shes had from
people that never asked her before.

GILBEY.  I never knew we could live without being respectable.

MRS GILBEY.  Oh, Rob, what a thing to say!  Who says we're not
respectable?

GILBEY.  Well, it's not what I call respectable to have your children
in and out of gaol.

KNOX.  Oh come, Gilbey! we're not tramps because weve had, as it were,
an accident.

GILBEY.  It's no use, Knox:  look it in the face.  Did I ever tell you
my father drank?

KNOX.  No.  But I knew it.  Simmons told me.

GILBEY.  Yes:  he never could keep his mouth quiet:  he told me your
aunt was a kleptomaniac.

MRS KNOX.  It wasnt true, Mr Gilbey.  She used to pick up
handkerchiefs if she saw them lying about; but you might trust her
with untold silver.

GILBEY.  My Uncle Phil was a teetotaller.  My father used to say to
me:  Rob, he says, dont you ever have a weakness.  If you find one
getting a hold on you, make a merit of it, he says.  Your Uncle Phil
doesnt like spirits; and he makes a merit of it, and is chairman of
the Blue Ribbon Committee.  I do like spirits; and I make a merit of
it, and I'm the King Cockatoo of the Convivial Cockatoos.  Never put
yourself in the wrong, he says.  I used to boast about what a good boy
Bobby was.  Now I swank about what a dog he is; and it pleases people
just as well.  What a world it is!

KNOX.  It turned my blood cold at first to hear Margaret telling
people about Holloway; but it goes down better than her singing used
to.

MRS KNOX.  I never thought she sang right after all those lessons we
paid for.

GILBEY.  Lord, Knox, it was lucky you and me got let in together.  I
tell you straight, if it hadnt been for Bobby's disgrace, I'd have
broke up the firm.

KNOX.  I shouldnt have blamed you:  I'd have done the same only for
Margaret.  Too much straightlacedness narrows a man's mind.  Talking
of that, what about those hygienic corset advertisements that Vines &
Jackson want us to put in the window?  I told Vines they werent decent
and we couldnt shew them in our shop.  I was pretty high with him.
But what am I to say to him now if he comes and throws this business
in our teeth?

GILBEY.  Oh, put em in.  We may as well go it a bit now.

MRS GILBEY.  Youve been going it quite far enough, Rob.  [To Mrs
Knox]  He wont get up in the mornings now:  he that was always out of
bed at seven to the tick!

MRS KNOX.  You hear that, Jo?  [To Mrs Gilbey]  Hes taken to whisky
and soda.  A pint a week!  And the beer the same as before!

KNOX.  Oh, dont preach, old girl.

MRS KNOX.  [To Mrs Gilbey]  Thats a new name hes got for me.  [to
Knox]  I tell you, Jo, this doesnt sit well on you.  You may call it
preaching if you like; but it's the truth for all that.  I say that if
youve happiness within yourself, you dont need to seek it outside,
spending money on drink and theatres and bad company, and being
miserable after all.  You can sit at home and be happy; and you can
work and be happy.  If you have that in you, the spirit will set you
free to do what you want and guide you to do right.  But if you havent
got it, then youd best be respectable and stick to the ways that are
marked out for you; for youve nothing else to keep you straight.

KNOX.  [angrily]  And is a man never to have a bit of fun?  See
whats come of it with your daughter!  She was to be content with your
happiness that youre always talking about; and how did the spirit
guide her?  To a month's hard for being drunk and assaulting the
police.  Did _I_ ever assault the police?

MRS KNOX.  You wouldnt have the courage.  I dont blame the girl.

MRS GILBEY.     |   Oh, Maria!  What are you saying?
                |

GILBEY.         |   What!  And you so pious!

MRS KNOX.  She went where the spirit guided her.  And what harm there
was in it she knew nothing about.

GILBEY.  Oh, come, Mrs Knox!  Girls are not so innocent as all that.

MRS KNOX.  I dont say she was ignorant.  But I do say that she didnt
know what we know:  I mean the way certain temptations get a sudden
hold that no goodness nor self-control is any use against.  She was
saved from that, and had a rough lesson too; and I say it was no
earthly protection that did that.  But dont think, you two men, that
youll be protected if you make what she did an excuse to go and do as
youd like to do if it wasnt for fear of losing your characters.  The
spirit wont guide you, because it isnt in you; and it never had been:
not in either of you.

GILBEY.  [with ironic humility]  I'm sure I'm obliged to you for
your good opinion, Mrs Knox.

MRS KNOX.  Well, I will say for you, Mr Gilbey, that youre better than
my man here.  Hes a bitter hard heathen, is my Jo, God help me!  [She
begins to cry quietly].

KNOX.  Now, dont take on like that, Amelia.  You know I always give in
to you that you were right about religion.  But one of us had to think
of other things, or we'd have starved, we and the child.

MRS KNOX.  How do you know youd have starved?  All the other things
might have been added unto you.

GILBEY.  Come, Mrs Knox, dont tell me Knox is a sinner.  I know
better.  I'm sure youd be the first to be sorry if anything was to
happen to him.

KNOX.  [bitterly to his wife]  Youve always had some grudge against
me; and nobody but yourself can understand what it is.

MRS KNOX.  I wanted a man who had that happiness within himself.  You
made me think you had it; but it was nothing but being in love with
me.

MRS GILBEY.  And do you blame him for that?

MRS KNOX.  I blame nobody.  But let him not think he can walk by his
own light.  I tell him that if he gives up being respectable he'll go
right down to the bottom of the hill.  He has no powers inside himself
to keep him steady; so let him cling to the powers outside him.

KNOX.  [rising angrily]  Who wants to give up being respectable?
All this for a pint of whisky that lasted a week!  How long would it
have lasted Simmons, I wonder?

MRS KNOX.  [gently]  Oh, well, say no more, Jo.  I wont plague you
about it.  [He sits down].  You never did understand; and you never
will.  Hardly anybody understands:  even Margaret didnt til she went
to prison.  She does now; and I shall have a companion in the house
after all these lonely years.

KNOX.  [beginning to cry]  I did all I could to make you happy.  I
never said a harsh word to you.

GILBEY.  [rising indignantly]  What right have you to treat a man
like that? an honest respectable husband? as if he were dirt under
your feet?

KNOX.  Let her alone, Gilbey.  [Gilbey sits down, but mutinously].

MRS KNOX.  Well, you gave me all you could, Jo; and if it wasnt what I
wanted, that wasnt your fault.  But I'd rather have you as you were
than since you took to whisky and soda.

KNOX.  I dont want any whisky and soda.  I'll take the pledge if you
like.

MRS KNOX.  No:  you shall have your beer because you like it.  The
whisky was only brag.  And if you and me are to remain friends, Mr
Gilbey, youll get up to-morrow morning at seven.

GILBEY.  [defiantly]  Damme if I will!  There!

MRS KNOX.  [with gentle pity]  How do you know, Mr Gilbey, what
youll do to-morrow morning?

GILBEY.  Why shouldnt I know?  Are we children not to be let do what
we like, and our own sons and daughters kicking their heels all over
the place?  [To Knox]  I was never one to interfere between man and
wife, Knox; but if Maria started ordering me about like that--

MRS GILBEY.  Now dont be naughty, Rob.  You know you mustnt set
yourself up against religion?

GILBEY.  Whos setting himself up against religion?

MRS KNOX.  It doesnt matter whether you set yourself up against it or
not, Mr. Gilbey.  If it sets itself up against you, youll have to go
the appointed way:  it's no use quarrelling about it with me that am
as great a sinner as yourself.

GILBEY.  Oh, indeed!  And who told you I was a sinner?

MRS GILBEY.  Now, Rob, you know we are all sinners.  What else is
religion?

GILBEY.  I say nothing against religion.  I suppose were all sinners,
in a manner of speaking; but I dont like to have it thrown at me as if
I'd really done anything.

MRS GILBEY.  Mrs Knox is speaking for your good, Rob.

GILBEY.  Well, I dont like to be spoken to for my good.  Would anybody
like it?

MRS KNOX.  Dont take offence where none is meant, Mr Gilbey.  Talk
about something else.  No good ever comes of arguing about such things
among the like of us.

KNOX.  The like of us!  Are you throwing it in our teeth that your
people were in the wholesale and thought Knox and Gilbey wasnt good
enough for you?

MRS KNOX.  No, Jo:  you know I'm not.  What better were my people than
yours, for all their pride?  But Ive noticed it all my life:  we're
ignorant.  We dont really know whats right and whats wrong.  We're all
right as long as things go on the way they always did.  We bring our
children up just as we were brought up; and we go to church or chapel
just as our parents did; and we say what everybody says; and it goes
on all right until something out of the way happens:  theres a family
quarrel, or one of the children goes wrong, or a father takes to
drink, or an aunt goes mad, or one of us finds ourselves doing
something we never thought we'd want to do.  And then you know what
happens:  complaints and quarrels and huff and offence and bad
language and bad temper and regular bewilderment as if Satan possessed
us all.  We find out then that with all our respectability and piety,
weve no real religion and no way of telling right from wrong.  Weve
nothing but our habits; and when theyre upset, where are we?  Just
like Peter in the storm trying to walk on the water and finding he
couldnt.

MRS GILBEY.  [piously]  Aye!  He found out, didnt he?

GILBEY.  [reverently]  I never denied that youve a great intellect,
Mrs Knox--

MRS KNOX.  Oh get along with you, Gilbey, if you begin talking about
my intellect.  Give us some tea, Maria.  Ive said my say; and Im sure
I beg the company's pardon for being so long about it, and so
disagreeable.

MRS GILBEY.  Ring, Rob.  [Gilbey rings].  Stop.  Juggins will think
we're ringing for him.

GILBEY.  [appalled]  It's too late.  I rang before I thought of it.

MRS GILBEY.  Step down and apologize, Rob.

KNOX.  Is it him that you said was brother to a--

_Juggins comes in with the tea-tray.  All rise.  He takes the tray to
Mrs. Gilbey._

GILBEY.  I didnt mean to ask you to do this, Mr Juggins.  I wasnt
thinking when I rang.

MRS GILBEY.  [trying to take the tray from him]  Let me, Juggins.

JUGGINS.  Please sit down, madam.  Allow me to discharge my duties
just as usual, sir.  I assure you that is the correct thing.  [They
sit down, ill at ease, whilst he places the tray on the table.  He
then goes out for the curate].

KNOX.  [lowering his voice]  Is this all right, Gilbey?  Anybody may
be the son of a duke, you know.  Is he legitimate?

GILBEY.  Good lord!  I never thought of that.

_Juggins returns with the cakes.  They regard him with suspicion._

GILBEY.  [whispering to Knox]  You ask him.

KNOX.  [to Juggins]  Just a word with you, my man.  Was your mother
married to your father?

JUGGINS.  I believe so, sir.  I cant say from personal knowledge.  It
was before my time.

GILBEY.  Well, but look here you know--[he hesitates].

JUGGINS.  Yes, sir?

KNOX.  I know whatll clinch it, Gilbey.  You leave it to me.  [To
Juggins]  Was your mother the duchess?

JUGGINS.  Yes, sir.  Quite correct, sir, I assure you.  [To Mrs
Gilbey]  That is the milk, madam.  [She has mistaken the jugs].
This is the water.

_They stare at him in pitiable embarrassment._

MRS KNOX.  What did I tell you?  Heres something out of the common
happening with a servant; and we none of us know how to behave.

JUGGINS.  It's quite simple, madam.  I'm a footman, and should be
treated as a footman.  [He proceeds calmly with his duties, handing
round cups of tea as Mrs Knox fills them].

_Shrieks of laughter from below stairs reach the ears of the company._

MRS GILBEY.  Whats that noise?  Is Master Bobby at home?  I heard his
laugh.

MRS KNOX.  I'm sure I heard Margaret's.

GILBEY.  Not a bit of it.  It was that woman.

JUGGINS.  I can explain, sir.  I must ask you to excuse the liberty;
but I'm entertaining a small party to tea in my pantry.

MRS GILBEY.  But youre not entertaining Master Bobby?

JUGGINS.  Yes, madam.

GILBEY.  Who's with him?

JUGGINS.  Miss Knox, sir.

GILBEY.  Miss Knox!  Are you sure?  Is there anyone else?

JUGGINS.  Only a French marine officer, sir, and--er--Miss Delaney.
[He places Gilbey's tea on the table before him].  The lady that
called about Master Bobby, sir.

KNOX.  Do you mean to say theyre having a party all to themselves
downstairs, and we having a party up here and knowing nothing about
it?

JUGGINS.  Yes, sir.  I have to do a good deal of entertaining in the
pantry for Master Bobby, sir.

GILBEY.  Well, this is a nice state of things!

KNOX.  Whats the meaning of it?  What do they do it for?

JUGGINS.  To enjoy themselves, sir, I should think.

MRS GILBEY.  Enjoy themselves!  Did ever anybody hear of such a thing?

GILBEY.  Knox's daughter shewn into my pantry!

KNOX.  Margaret mixing with a Frenchman and a footman--  [Suddenly
realizing that the footman is offering him cake.]  She doesnt know
about--about His Grace, you know.

MRS GILBEY.  Perhaps she does.  Does she, Mr Juggins?

JUGGINS.  The other lady suspects me, madam.  They call me Rudolph, or
the Long Lost Heir.

MRS GILBEY.  It's a much nicer name than Juggins.  I think I'll call
you by it, if you dont mind.

JUGGINS.  Not at all, madam.

_Roars of merriment from below._

GILBEY.  Go and tell them to stop laughing.  What right have they to
make a noise like that?

JUGGINS.  I asked them not to laugh so loudly, sir.  But the French
gentleman always sets them off again.

KNOX.  Do you mean to tell me that my daughter laughs at a Frenchman's
jokes?

GILBEY.  We all know what French jokes are.

JUGGINS.  Believe me:  you do not, sir.  The noise this afternoon has
all been because the Frenchman said that the cat had whooping cough.

MRS GILBEY.  [laughing heartily]  Well, I never!

GILBEY.  Dont be a fool, Maria.  Look here, Knox:  we cant let this go
on.  People cant be allowed to behave like this.

KNOX.  Just what I say.

_A concertina adds its music to the revelry._

MRS GILBEY.  [excited]  Thats the squiffer.  Hes bought it for her.

GILBEY.  Well, of all the scandalous--  [Redoubled laughter from
below].

KNOX.  I'll put a stop to this.  [He goes out to the landing and
shouts]  Margaret!  [Sudden dead silence].  Margaret, I say!

MARGARET'S VOICE.  Yes, father.  Shall we all come up?  We're dying
to.

KNOX.  Come up and be ashamed of yourselves, behaving like wild
Indians.

DORA'S VOICE [screaming]  Oh! oh! oh!  Dont Bobby.  Now--oh!  [In
headlong flight she dashes into and right across the room, breathless,
and slightly abashed by the company].  I beg your pardon, Mrs Gilbey,
for coming in like that; but whenever I go upstairs in front of Bobby,
he pretends it's a cat biting my ankles; and I just must scream.

_Bobby and Margaret enter rather more shyly, but evidently in high
spirits.  Bobby places himself near his father, on the hearthrug, and
presently slips down into the arm-chair._

MARGARET.  How do you do, Mrs. Gilbey?  [She posts herself behind her
mother].

_Duvallet comes in behaving himself perfectly.  Knox follows._

MARGARET.  Oh--let me introduce.  My friend Lieutenant Duvallet.  Mrs
Gilbey.  Mr Gilbey.  [Duvallet bows and sits down on Mr Knox's left,
Juggins placing a chair for him].

DORA.  Now, Bobby:  introduce me:  theres a dear.

BOBBY.  [a little nervous about it; but trying to keep up his
spirits]  Miss Delaney:  Mr and Mrs Knox.  [Knox, as he resumes his
seat, acknowledges the introduction suspiciously.  Mrs Knox bows
gravely, looking keenly at Dora and taking her measure without
prejudice].

DORA.  Pleased to meet you.  [Juggins places the baby rocking-chair
for her on Mrs Gilbey's right, opposite Mrs Knox].  Thank you.  [She
sits and turns to Mrs Gilbey]  Bobby's given me the squiffer.  [To
the company generally]  Do you know what theyve been doing
downstairs?  [She goes off into ecstasies of mirth].  Youd never
guess.  Theyve been trying to teach me table manners.  The Lieutenant
and Rudolph say I'm a regular pig.  I'm sure I never knew there was
anything wrong with me.  But live and learn [to Gilbey] eh, old
dear?

JUGGINS.  Old dear is not correct, Miss Delaney.  [He retires to the
end of the sideboard nearest the door].

DORA.  Oh get out!  I must call a man something.  He doesnt mind:  do
you, Charlie?

MRS GILBEY.  His name isnt Charlie.

DORA.  Excuse me.  I call everybody Charlie.

JUGGINS.  You mustnt.

DORA.  Oh, if I were to mind you, I should have to hold my tongue
altogether; and then how sorry youd be!  Lord, how I do run on!  Dont
mind me, Mrs Gilbey.

KNOX.  What I want to know is, whats to be the end of this?  It's not
for me to interfere between you and your son, Gilbey:  he knows his
own intentions best, no doubt, and perhaps has told them to you.  But
Ive my daughter to look after; and it's my duty as a parent to have a
clear understanding about her.  No good is ever done by beating about
the bush.  I ask Lieutenant--well, I dont speak French; and I cant
pronounce the name--

MARGARET.  Mr Duvallet, father.

KNOX.  I ask Mr Doovalley what his intentions are.

MARGARET.  Oh father:  how can you?

DUVALLET.  I'm afraid my knowledge of English is not enough to
understand.  Intentions?  How?

MARGARET.  He wants to know will you marry me.

MRS GILBEY. |   What a thing to say!
            |

KNOX.       |   Silence, miss.
            |

DORA.       |   Well, thats straight, aint it?

DUVALLET.  But I am married already.  I have two daughters.

KNOX.  [rising, virtuously indignant]  You sit there after carrying
on with my daughter, and tell me coolly youre married.

MARGARET.  Papa:  you really must not tell people that they sit there.
[He sits down again sulkily].

DUVALLET.  Pardon.  Carrying on?  What does that mean?

MARGARET.  It means--

KNOX.  [violently]  Hold your tongue, you shameless young hussy.
Dont you dare say what it means.

DUVALLET.  [shrugging his shoulders]  What does it mean, Rudolph?

MRS KNOX.  If it's not proper for her to say, it's not proper for a
man to say, either.  Mr Doovalley:  youre a married man with
daughters.  Would you let them go about with a stranger, as you are to
us, without wanting to know whether he intended to behave honorably?

DUVALLET.  Ah, madam, my daughters are French girls.  That is very
different.  It would not be correct for a French girl to go about
alone and speak to men as English and American girls do.  That is why
I so immensely admire the English people.  You are so free--so
unprejudiced--your women are so brave and frank--their minds are
so--how do you say?--wholesome.  I intend to have my daughters
educated in England.  Nowhere else in the world but in England could I
have met at a Variety Theatre a charming young lady of perfect
respectability, and enjoyed a dance with her at a public dancing
saloon.  And where else are women trained to box and knock out the
teeth of policemen as a protest against injustice and violence?
[Rising, with immense elan]  Your daughter, madam, is superb.  Your
country is a model to the rest of Europe.  If you were a Frenchman,
stifled with prudery, hypocrisy and the tyranny of the family and the
home, you would understand how an enlightened Frenchman admires and
envies your freedom, your broadmindedness, and the fact that home life
can hardly be said to exist in England.  You have made an end of the
despotism of the parent; the family council is unknown to you;
everywhere in these islands one can enjoy the exhilarating, the
soul-liberating spectacle of men quarrelling with their brothers,
defying their fathers, refusing to speak to their mothers.  In France
we are not men:  we are only sons--grown-up children.  Here one is a
human being--an end in himself.  Oh, Mrs Knox, if only your military
genius were equal to your moral genius--if that conquest of Europe by
France which inaugurated the new age after the Revolution had only
been an English conquest, how much more enlightened the world would
have been now!  We, alas, can only fight.  France is unconquerable.
We impose our narrow ideas, our prejudices, our obsolete institutions,
our insufferable pedantry on the world by brute force--by that stupid
quality of military heroism which shews how little we have evolved
from the savage:  nay, from the beast.  We can charge like bulls; we
can spring on our foes like gamecocks; when we are overpowered by
reason, we can die fighting like rats.  And we are foolish enough to
be proud of it!  Why should we be?  Does the bull progress?  Can you
civilize the gamecock?  Is there any future for the rat?  We cant even
fight intelligently:  when we lose battles, it is because we have not
sense enough to know when we are beaten.  At Waterloo, had we known
when we were beaten, we should have retreated; tried another plan; and
won the battle.  But no:  we were too pigheaded to admit that there is
anything impossible to a Frenchman:  we were quite satisfied when our
Marshals had six horses shot under them, and our stupid old grognards
died fighting rather than surrender like reasonable beings.  Think of
your great Wellington:  think of his inspiring words, when the lady
asked him whether British soldiers ever ran away.  "All soldiers run
away, madam," he said; "but if there are supports for them to fall
back on it does not matter."  Think of your illustrious Nelson, always
beaten on land, always victorious at sea, where his men could not run
away.  You are not dazzled and misled by false ideals of patriotic
enthusiasm:  your honest and sensible statesmen demand for England a
two-power standard, even a three-power standard, frankly admitting
that it is wise to fight three to one:  whilst we, fools and braggarts
as we are, declare that every Frenchman is a host in himself, and that
when one Frenchman attacks three Englishmen he is guilty of an act of
cowardice comparable to that of the man who strikes a woman.  It is
folly:  it is nonsense:  a Frenchman is not really stronger than a
German, than an Italian, even than an Englishman.  Sir:  if all
Frenchwomen were like your daughter--if all Frenchmen had the good
sense, the power of seeing things as they really are, the calm
judgment, the open mind, the philosophic grasp, the foresight and true
courage, which are so natural to you as an Englishman that you are
hardly conscious of possessing them, France would become the greatest
nation in the world.

MARGARET.  Three cheers for old England!  [She shakes hands with him
warmly].

BOBBY.  Hurra-a-ay!  And so say all of us.

_Duvallet, having responded to Margaret's handshake with enthusiasm,
kisses Juggins on both cheeks, and sinks into his chair, wiping his
perspiring brow._

GILBEY.  Well, this sort of talk is above me.  Can you make anything
out of it, Knox?

KNOX.  The long and short of it seems to be that he cant lawfully
marry my daughter, as he ought after going to prison with her.

DORA.  I'm ready to marry Bobby, if that will be any satisfaction.

GILBEY.  No you dont.  Not if I know it.

MRS KNOX.  He ought to, Mr Gilbey.

GILBEY.  Well, if thats your religion, Amelia Knox, I want no more of
it.  Would you invite them to your house if he married her?

MRS KNOX.  He ought to marry her whether or no.

BOBBY.  I feel I ought to, Mrs Knox.

GILBEY.  Hold your tongue.  Mind your own business.

BOBBY.  [wildly]  If I'm not let marry her, I'll do something
downright disgraceful.  I'll enlist as a soldier.

JUGGINS.  That is not a disgrace, sir.

BOBBY.  Not for you, perhaps.  But youre only a footman.  I'm a
gentleman.

MRS GILBEY.  Dont dare to speak disrespectfully to Mr Rudolph, Bobby.
For shame!

JUGGINS.  [coming forward to the middle of the table]  It is not
gentlemanly to regard the service of your country as disgraceful.  It
is gentlemanly to marry the lady you make love to.

GILBEY.  [aghast]  My boy is to marry this woman and be a social
outcast!

JUGGINS.  Your boy and Miss Delaney will be inexorably condemned by
respectable society to spend the rest of their days in precisely the
sort of company they seem to like best and be most at home in.

KNOX.  And my daughter?  Whos to marry my daughter?

JUGGINS.  Your daughter, sir, will probably marry whoever she makes up
her mind to marry.  She is a lady of very determined character.

KNOX.  Yes:  if he'd have her with her character gone.  But who would?
Youre the brother of a duke.  Would--

BOBBY.      |   Whats that?
            |
MARGARET.   |   Juggins a duke?
            |
DUVALLET.   |   _Comment!_
            |
DORA.       |   What did I tell you?

KNOX.  Yes:  the brother of a duke:  thats what he is.  [To Juggins]
Well, would you marry her?

JUGGINS.  I was about to propose that solution of your problem, Mr
Knox.

MRS GILBEY. |   Well I never!
            |
KNOX.       |   D'ye mean it?
            |
MRS KNOX.   |   Marry Margaret!

JUGGINS.  [continuing]  As an idle younger son, unable to support
myself, or even to remain in the Guards in competition with the
grandsons of American millionaires, I could not have aspired to Miss
Knox's hand.  But as a sober, honest, and industrious domestic
servant, who has, I trust, given satisfaction to his employer [he
bows to Mr Gilbey] I feel I am a man with a character.  It is for
Miss Knox to decide.

MARGARET.  I got into a frightful row once for admiring you, Rudolph.

JUGGINS.  I should have got into an equally frightful row myself,
Miss, had I betrayed my admiration for you.  I looked forward to those
weekly dinners.

MRS KNOX.  But why did a gentleman like you stoop to be a footman?

DORA.  He stooped to conquer.

MARGARET.  Shut up, Dora:  I want to hear.

JUGGINS.  I will explain; but only Mrs Knox will understand.  I once
insulted a servant--rashly; for he was a sincere Christian.  He
rebuked me for trifling with a girl of his own class.  I told him to
remember what he was, and to whom he was speaking.  He said God would
remember.  I discharged him on the spot.

GILBEY.  Very properly.

KNOX.  What right had he to mention such a thing to you?

MRS GILBEY.  What are servants coming to?

MRS KNOX.  Did it come true, what he said?

JUGGINS.  It stuck like a poisoned arrow.  It rankled for months.
Then I gave in.  I apprenticed myself to an old butler of ours who
kept a hotel.  He taught me my present business, and got me a place as
footman with Mr Gilbey.  If ever I meet that man again I shall be able
to look him in the face.

MRS KNOX.  Margaret:  it's not on account of the duke:  dukes are
vanities.  But take my advice and take him.

MARGARET.  [slipping her arm through his]  I have loved Juggins
since the first day I beheld him.  I felt instinctively he had been in
the Guards.  May he walk out with me, Mr Gilbey?

KNOX.  Dont be vulgar, girl.  Remember your new position.  [To
Juggins]  I suppose youre serious about this, Mr--Mr Rudolph?

JUGGINS.  I propose, with your permission, to begin keeping company
this afternoon, if Mrs Gilbey can spare me.

GILBEY.  [in a gust of envy, to Bobby]  Itll be long enough before
youll marry the sister of a duke, you young good-for-nothing.

DORA.  Dont fret, old dear.  Rudolph will teach me high-class manners.
I call it quite a happy ending:  dont you, lieutenant?

DUVALLET.  In France it would be impossible.  But here--ah!  [kissing
his hand] la belle Angleterre!



EPILOGUE

_Before the curtain.  The Count, dazed and agitated, hurries to the 4
critics, as they rise, bored and weary, from their seats._

THE COUNT.  Gentlemen:  do not speak to me.  I implore you to withhold
your opinion.  I am not strong enough to bear it.  I could never have
believed it.  Is this a play?  Is this in any sense of the word, Art?
Is it agreeable?  Can it conceivably do good to any human being?  Is
it delicate?  Do such people really exist?  Excuse me, gentlemen:  I
speak from a wounded heart.  There are private reasons for my
discomposure.  This play implies obscure, unjust, unkind reproaches
and menaces to all of us who are parents.

TROTTER.  Pooh! you take it too seriously.  After all, the thing has
amusing passages.  Dismiss the rest as impertinence.

THE COUNT.  Mr Trotter:  it is easy for you to play the pococurantist.
[Trotter, amazed, repeats the first three syllables in his throat,
making a noise like a pheasant].  You see hundreds of plays every
year.  But to me, who have never seen anything of this kind before,
the effect of this play is terribly disquieting.  Sir:  if it had been
what people call an immoral play, I shouldnt have minded a bit.
[Vaughan is shocked].  Love beautifies every romance and justifies
every audacity.  [Bannal assents gravely].  But there are reticences
which everybody should respect.  There are decencies too subtle to be
put into words, without which human society would be unbearable.
People could not talk to one another as those people talk.  No child
could speak to its parent--no girl could speak to a youth--no human
creature could tear down the veils--  [Appealing to Vaughan, who is
on his left flank, with Gunn between them]  Could they, sir?

VAUGHAN.  Well, I dont see that.

THE COUNT.  You dont see it! dont feel it!  [To Gunn]  Sir:  I
appeal to you.

GUNN.  [with studied weariness]  It seems to me the most ordinary
sort of old-fashioned Ibsenite drivel.

THE COUNT [turning to Trotter, who is on his right, between him and
Bannal]  Mr Trotter:  will you tell me that you are not amazed,
outraged, revolted, wounded in your deepest and holiest feelings by
every word of this play, every tone, every implication; that you did
not sit there shrinking in every fibre at the thought of what might
come next?

TROTTER.  Not a bit.  Any clever modern girl could turn out that kind
of thing by the yard.

THE COUNT.  Then, sir, tomorrow I start for Venice, never to return.
I must believe what you tell me.  I perceive that you are not
agitated, not surprised, not concerned; that my own horror (yes,
gentlemen, horror--horror of the very soul) appears unaccountable to
you, ludicrous, absurd, even to you, Mr Trotter, who are little
younger than myself.  Sir:  if young people spoke to me like that, I
should die of shame:  I could not face it.  I must go back.  The world
has passed me by and left me.  Accept the apologies of an elderly and
no doubt ridiculous admirer of the art of a bygone day, when there was
still some beauty in the world and some delicate grace in family life.
But I promised my daughter your opinion; and I must keep my word.
Gentlemen:  you are the choice and master spirits of this age:  you
walk through it without bewilderment and face its strange products
without dismay.  Pray deliver your verdict.  Mr Bannal:  you know that
it is the custom at a Court Martial for the youngest officer present
to deliver his judgment first; so that he may not be influenced by the
authority of his elders.  You are the youngest.  What is your opinion
of the play?

BANNAL.  Well, whos it by?

THE COUNT.  That is a secret for the present.

BANNAL.  You dont expect me to know what to say about a play when I
dont know who the author is, do you?

THE COUNT.  Why not?

BANNAL.  Why not!  Why not!!  Suppose you had to write about a play by
Pinero and one by Jones!  Would you say exactly the same thing about
them?

THE COUNT.  I presume not.

BANNAL.  Then how could you write about them until you knew which was
Pinero and which was Jones?  Besides, what sort of play is this? thats
what I want to know.  Is it a comedy or a tragedy?  Is it a farce or a
melodrama?  Is it repertory theatre tosh, or really straight paying
stuff?

GUNN.  Cant you tell from seeing it?

BANNAL.  I can see it all right enough; but how am I to know how to
take it?  Is it serious, or is it spoof?  If the author knows what his
play is, let him tell us what it is.  If he doesnt, he cant complain
if I dont know either.  _I_'m not the author.

THE COUNT.  But is it a good play, Mr Bannal?  Thats a simple
question.

BANNAL.  Simple enough when you know.  If it's by a good author, it's
a good play, naturally.  That stands to reason.  Who is the author?
Tell me that; and I'll place the play for you to a hair's breadth.

THE COUNT.  I'm sorry I'm not at liberty to divulge the author's name.
The author desires that the play should be judged on its merits.

BANNAL.  But what merits can it have except the author's merits?  Who
would you say it's by, Gunn?

GUNN.  Well, who do you think?  Here you have a rotten old-fashioned
domestic melodrama acted by the usual stage puppets.  The hero's a
naval lieutenant.  All melodramatic heroes are naval lieutenants.  The
heroine gets into trouble by defying the law (if she didnt get into
trouble, thered be no drama) and plays for sympathy all the time as
hard as she can.  Her good old pious mother turns on her cruel father
when hes going to put her out of the house, and says she'll go too.
Then theres the comic relief:  the comic shopkeeper, the comic
shopkeeper's wife, the comic footman who turns out to be a duke in
disguise, and the young scapegrace who gives the author his excuse for
dragging in a fast young woman.  All as old and stale as a fried fish
shop on a winter morning.

THE COUNT.  But--

GUNN [interrupting him]  I know what youre going to say, Count.
Youre going to say that the whole thing seems to you to be quite new
and unusual and original.  The naval lieutenant is a Frenchman who
cracks up the English and runs down the French:  the hackneyed old
Shaw touch.  The characters are second-rate middle class, instead of
being dukes and millionaires.  The heroine gets kicked through the
mud:  real mud.  Theres no plot.  All the old stage conventions and
puppets without the old ingenuity and the old enjoyment.  And a feeble
air of intellectual pretentiousness kept up all through to persuade
you that if the author hasnt written a good play it's because hes too
clever to stoop to anything so commonplace.  And you three experienced
men have sat through all this, and cant tell me who wrote it!  Why,
the play bears the author's signature in every line.

BANNAL.  Who?

GUNN.  Granville Barker, of course.  Why, old Gilbey is straight out
of The Madras House.

BANNAL.  Poor old Barker!

VAUGHAN.  Utter nonsense!  Cant you see the difference in style?

BANNAL.  No.

VAUGHAN.  [contemptuously]  Do you know what style is?

BANNAL.  Well, I suppose youd call Trotter's uniform style.  But it's
not my style--since you ask me.

VAUGHAN.  To me it's perfectly plain who wrote that play.  To begin
with, it's intensely disagreeable.  Therefore it's not by Barrie, in
spite of the footman, who's cribbed from The Admirable Crichton.  He
was an earl, you may remember.  You notice, too, the author's
offensive habit of saying silly things that have no real sense in them
when you come to examine them, just to set all the fools in the house
giggling.  Then what does it all come to?  An attempt to expose the
supposed hypocrisy of the Puritan middle class in England:  people
just as good as the author, anyhow.  With, of course, the inevitable
improper female:  the Mrs Tanqueray, Iris, and so forth.  Well, if you
cant recognize the author of that, youve mistaken your professions:
thats all I have to say.

BANNAL.  Why are you so down on Pinero?  And what about that touch
that Gunn spotted? the Frenchman's long speech.  I believe it's Shaw.

GUNN.  Rubbish!

VAUGHAN.  Rot!  You may put that idea out of your head, Bannal.  Poor
as this play is, theres the note of passion in it.  You feel somehow
that beneath all the assumed levity of that poor waif and stray, she
really loves Bobby and will be a good wife to him.  Now Ive repeatedly
proved that Shaw is physiologically incapable of the note of passion.

BANNAL.  Yes, I know.  Intellect without emotion.  Thats right.  I
always say that myself.  A giant brain, if you ask me; but no heart.

GUNN.  Oh, shut up, Bannal.  This crude medieval psychology of heart
and brain--Shakespear would have called it liver and wits--is really
schoolboyish.  Surely weve had enough of second-hand Schopenhauer.
Even such a played-out old back number as Ibsen would have been
ashamed of it.  Heart and brain, indeed!

VAUGHAN.  You have neither one nor the other, Gunn.  Youre decadent.

GUNN.  Decadent!  How I love that early Victorian word!

VAUGHAN.  Well, at all events, you cant deny that the characters in
this play were quite distinguishable from one another.  That proves
it's not by Shaw, because all Shaw's characters are himself:  mere
puppets stuck up to spout Shaw.  It's only the actors that make them
seem different.

BANNAL.  There can be no doubt of that:  everybody knows it.  But Shaw
doesnt write his plays as plays.  All he wants to do is to insult
everybody all round and set us talking about him.

TROTTER.  [wearily]  And naturally, here we are all talking about
him.  For heaven's sake, let us change the subject

VAUGHAN.  Still, my articles about Shaw--

GUNN.  Oh, stow it, Vaughan.  Drop it.  What Ive always told you about
Shaw is--

BANNAL.  There you go, Shaw, Shaw, Shaw!  Do chuck it.  If you want to
know my opinion about Shaw--

TROTTER.    |   No, please, we dont.    |
            |                           |
VAUGHAN.    |   Shut your head, Bannal. | [yelling]
            |                           |
GUNN.       |   Oh, do drop it.         |

_The deafened Count puts his fingers in his ears and flies from the
centre of the group to its outskirts, behind Vaughan._

BANNAL.  [sulkily]  Oh, very well.  Sorry I spoke, I'm sure.

TROTTER.    |   Shaw--  |
            |           | [beginning again
VAUGHAN.    |   Shaw--  | simultaneously]
            |           |
GUNN.       |   Shaw--  |

_They are cut short by the entry of Fanny through the curtains.  She
is almost in tears._

FANNY.  [coming between Trotter and Gunn]  I'm so sorry, gentlemen.
And it was such a success when I read it to the Cambridge Fabian
Society!

TROTTER.  Miss O'Dowda:  I was about to tell these gentlemen what I
guessed before the curtain rose:  that you are the author of the play.
[General amazement and consternation].

FANNY.  And you all think it beastly.  You hate it.  You think I'm a
conceited idiot, and that I shall never be able to write anything
decent.

_She is almost weeping.  A wave of sympathy carries away the critics._

VAUGHAN.  No, no.  Why, I was just saying that it must have been
written by Pinero.  Didnt I, Gunn?

FANNY.  [enormously flattered]  Really?

TROTTER.  I thought Pinero was much too popular for the Cambridge
Fabian Society.

FANNY.  Oh yes, of course; but still--Oh, did you really say that, Mr
Vaughan?

GUNN.  I owe you an apology, Miss O'Dowda.  I said it was by Barker.

FANNY.  [radiant]  Granville Barker!  Oh, you couldnt really have
thought it so fine as that.

BANNAL.  _I_ said Bernard Shaw.

FANNY.  Oh, of course it would be a little like Bernard Shaw.  The
Fabian touch, you know.

BANNAL.  [coming to her encouragingly]  A jolly good little play,
Miss O'Dowda.  Mind:  I dont say it's like one of Shakespear's--Hamlet
or The Lady of Lyons, you know--but still, a firstrate little bit of
work.  [He shakes her hand].

GUNN.  [following Bannal's example]  I also, Miss O'Dowda.  Capital.
Charming.  [He shakes hands].

VAUGHAN [with maudlin solemnity]  Only be true to yourself, Miss
O'Dowda.  Keep serious.  Give up making silly jokes.  Sustain the note
of passion.  And youll do great things.

FANNY.  You think I have a future?

TROTTER.  You have a past, Miss O'Dowda.

FANNY.  [looking apprehensively at her father]  Sh-sh-sh!

THE COUNT.  A past!  What do you mean, Mr Trotter?

TROTTER.  [to Fanny]  You cant deceive me.  That bit about the
police was real.  Youre a Suffraget, Miss O'Dowda.  You were on that
Deputation.

THE COUNT.  Fanny:  is this true?

FANNY.  It is.  I did a month with Lady Constance Lytton; and I'm
prouder of it than I ever was of anything or ever shall be again.

TROTTER.  Is that any reason why you should stuff naughty plays down
my throat?

FANNY.  Yes:  itll teach you what it feels like to be forcibly fed.

THE COUNT.  She will never return to Venice.  I feel now as I felt
when the Campanile fell.

_Savoyard comes in through the curtains._

SAVOYARD.  [to the Count]  Would you mind coming to say a word of
congratulation to the company?  Theyre rather upset at having had no
curtain call.

THE COUNT.  Certainly, certainly.  I'm afraid Ive been rather remiss.
Let us go on the stage, gentlemen.

_The curtains are drawn, revealing the last scene of the play and the
actors on the stage.  The Count, Savoyard, the critics, and Fanny join
them, shaking hands and congratulating._

THE COUNT.  Whatever we may think of the play, gentlemen, I'm sure you
will agree with me that there can be only one opinion about the
acting.

THE CRITICS.  Hear, hear!  [They start the applause].




AYOT ST. LAWRENCE, March 1911.