60 Plays: The George Bernard Shaw Edition (Illustrated). GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
of work from her basket and sits erect and quiet, stitching at it. Lickcheese coomes back, speaking to Sartorius, who follows him.] He lodges round the corner in Gower Street; and my private ‘ansom’s at the door. By your leave, Miss Blanche. [pulling gently at his overcoat.]
BLANCHE [rising] I beg your pardon. I hope I havnt crushed it.
LICKCHEESE [gallantly, as he gets into the coat] Youre welcome to crush it again now, Miss Blanche. Dont say good evenin to me, miss: I’m comin’ back presently, me and a friend or two. Ta ta, Sartorius: I shant be long. [He goes out. Sartorius looks about for the blue book.]
BLANCHE I thought we were done with Lickcheese.
SARTORIUS Not quite yet, I think. He left a book here for me to look over, a large book in a blue paper cover. Has the girl put it away? [He sees it in the fender, looks at Blanche, and adds:] Have you seen it?
BLANCHE No. Yes. [Angrily] No: I have not seen it. What have I to do with it? [Sartorius picks the book up and dusts it; then sits down quietly to read. After a glance up and down the columns, he nods assentingly, as if he found there exactly what he expected.]
SARTORIUS It’s a curious thing, Blanche, that the Parliamentary gentlemen who write such books as these should be so ignorant of practical business. One would suppose, to read this, that we are the most grasping, grinding, heartless pair in the world, you and I.
BLANCHE Is it not true about the state of the houses, I mean?
SARTORIUS [calmly] Oh, quite true.
BLANCHE Then it is not our fault?
SARTORIUS My dear: if we made the houses any better, the rents would have to be raised so much that the poor people would be unable to pay, and would be thrown homeless on the streets.
BLANCHE Well, turn them out and get in a respectable class of people. Why should we have the disgrace of harbouring such wretches?
SARTORIUS [opening his eyes] That sounds a little hard on them, doesnt it, my child?
‘BLANCHE Oh, I hate the poor. At least, I hate those dirty, drunken, disreputable people who live like pigs. If they must be provided for, let other people look after them. How can you expect anyone to think well of us when such things are written about us in that infamous book?
SARTORIUS [coldly and a little wistfully] I see I have made a real lady of you, Blanche.
BLANCHE [defiantly] Well, are you sorry for that?
SARTORIUS No, my dear: Of course not. But do you know, Blanche, that my mother was a very poor woman, and that her poverty was not her fault?
BLANCHE I suppose not; but the people we want to mix with now dont know that. And it was not my fault; so I dont see why I should be made to suffer for it.
SARTORIUS [enraged] Who makes you suffer for it, miss? What would you be now but for what your grandmother did for me when she stood at her washtub for thirteen hours a day and thought herself rich when she made fifteen shillings a week?
BLANCHE [angrily] I suppose I should have been down on her level instead of being raised above it, as I am now. Would you like us to go and live in that place in the book for the sake of grandmamma? I hate the idea of such things. I dont want to know about them. I love you because you brought me up to something better. [Half aside, as she turns a way from him.] I should hate you if you had not.
SARTORIUS [giving in] Well, my child, I suppose it is natural for you to feel that way, after your bringing up. It is the ladylike view of the matter. So dont let us quarrel, my girl. You shall not be made to suffer any more. I have made up my mind to improve the property, and get in quite a new class of tenants. There! does that satisfy you? I am only waiting for the consent of the ground landlord, Lady Roxdale.
BLANCHE Lady Roxdale!
SARTORIUS Yes. But I shall expect the mortgagee to take his share of the risk.
BLANCHE The mortgagee! Do you mean — [She cannot finish the sentence: Sartorius does it for her.]
SARTORIUS Harry Trench. Yes. And remember, Blanche: if he consents to join me in the scheme, I shall have to be friends with him.
BLANCHE And to ask him to the house?
SARTORIUS Only on business. You need not meet him unless you like.
BLANCHE [overwhelmed] When is he coming?
SARTORIUS There is no time to be lost. Lickcheese has gone to ask him to come round.
BLANCHE [in dismay] Then he will be here in a few minutes! What shall I do?
SARTORIUS I advise you to receive him as if nothing had happened, and then go out and leave us to our business. You are not afraid to meet him?
BLANCHE Afraid! No, most certainly not. But [Lickcheese’s voice is heard without] Here they are. Dont say I’m here, papa. [She rushes away into the study.]
[Lickcheese comes in with Trench and Cokane. Cokane shakes hands effusively with Bartorius. Trench, who is coarsened and sullen, and has evidently not been making the best of his disappointment, bows shortly and resentfully. Lickcheese covers the general embarrassment by talking cheerfully until they are all seated round the large table: Trench nearest the freplace; Cokane nearest the piano; and the other two between them, with Lickcheese next Cokane.]
LICKCHEESE Here we are, all friends round St Paul’s. You remember Mr Cokane: He does a little business for me now as a friend, and gives me a help with my correspondence– sekketerry we call it. Ive no litery style, and thats the truth; so Mr Cokane kindly puts it into my letters and draft prospectuses and advertisements and the like. Dont you, Cokane? Of course you do: Why shouldnt you? He’s been helping me tonight to persuade his old friend, Dr Trench, about the matter we were speaking of.
COKANE [austerely] No, Mr Lickcheese, not trying to persuade him. No: This is a matter of principle with me. I say it is your duty, Henry your duty to put those abominable buildings into proper and habitable repair. As a man of science you owe it to the community to perfect the sanitary arrangements. In questions of duty there is no room for persuasion, even from the oldest friend.
SARTORIUS [to Trench] I certainly feel, as Mr Cokane puts it, that it is our duty: One which I have perhaps too long neglected out of regard for the poorest class of tenants.
LICKCHEESE Not a doubt of it, gents, a dooty. I can be as sharp as any man when it’s a question of business; but dooty’s another thing.
TRENCH Well, I dont see that it’s any more my duty now than it was four months ago. I look at it simply as a question of so much money.
COKANE Shame, Harry, shame! Shame!
TRENCH Oh, shut up, you fool. [Cokane springs up. Lickcheese catches his coat and holds him.]
LICKCHEESE Steady, steady, Mr Sekketerry. Dr Trench is only joking.
COKANE I insist on the withdrawal of that expression. I have been called a fool.
TRENCH [morosely] So you are a fool.
‘COKANE Then you are a damned fool. Now, sir!
TRENCH All right. Now weve settled that. [Cokane, with a snort, sits down.] What I mean is this. Dont lets have any nonsense about this job. As I understand it, Robbins’s Row is to be pulled down to make way for the new street into the Strand; and the straight tip now is to go for compensation.
LICKCHEESE [chuckling] That’so, Dr Trench. Thats it.
TRENCH {continuing] Well, it appears that the dirtier a place is the more rent you get; and the decenter it is, the more compensation you get. So we’re to give up dirt and go in for decency.
SARTORIUS I should not put it exactly in that way; but —
COKANE Quite right, Mr Sartorius, quite right. The case could not have been stated in worse taste or with less tact.
LICKCHEESE Sh-sh-sh-sh!
SARTORIUS I do not quite go with you there, Mr Cokane.