The Essential Plays of George Bernard Shaw (Illustrated Edition). GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
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. Dr Trench puts the case frankly as a man of business. I take the wider view of a public man. We live in a progressive age; and humanitarian ideas are advancing and must be taken into account. But my practical conclusion is the same as his. I should hardly feel justified in making a large claim for compensation under existing circumstances.
LICKCHEESE Of course not; and you wouldnt get it if you did. You see, it’s like this, Dr Trench. Theres no doubt that the Vestries has legal powers to play old Harry with slum properties, and spoil the houseknacking game if they please. That didnt matter in the good old times, because the Vestries used to be us ourselves. Nobody ever knew a word about the election; and we used to get ten of us into a room and elect one another, and do what we liked. Well, that cock wont fight any longer; and, to put it short, the game is up for men in the position of you and Mr Sartorius. My advice to you is, take the present chance of getting out of it. Spend a little money on the block at the Cribbs Market end enough to make it look like a model dwelling; and let the other block to me on fair terms for a depot of the North Thames Iced Mutton Company. Theyll be knocked down inside of two year to make room for the new north and south main thoroughfare; and youll be compensated to the tune of double the present valuation, with the cost of the improvements thrown in. Leave things as they are; and you stand a good chance of being fined, or condemned, or pulled down before long. Now’s your time.
COKANE Hear, hear! Hear, hear! Hear, hear! Admirably put from the business point of view! I recognize the uselessness of putting the moral point of view to you, Trench; but even you must feel the cogency of Mr Lickcheese’s business statement.
TRENCH But why cant you act without me? What have I got to do with it? I’m only a mortgagee.
SARTORIUS There is a certain risk in this compensation investment, Dr Trench. The County Council may alter the line of the new street. If that happens, the money spent in improving the houses will be thrown away, simply thrown away. Worse than thrown away, in fact; for the new buildings may stand unlet, or half let, for years. But you will expect your seven per cent as usual.
TRENCH A man must live.
COCKANE Je n’en vois pas la necessite.
TRENCH Shut up, Billy; or else speak some language you understand. No, Mr Sartorius: I should be very glad to stand in with you if I could afford it; but I cant; so theres an end of that.
LICKCHEESE Well, all I can say is that youre a very foolish young man.
COKANE What did I tell you, Harry?
TRENCH I dont see that it’s any business of yours, Mr Lickcheese.
LICKCHEESE It’s a free country: Every man has a right to his opinion. [Cokane cries “Hear, hear!”] Come: wheres your feelins for them poor people, Dr Trench? Remember how it went to your heart when I first told you about them. What! Are