Collected Works. GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
a crisis? The Hun was at the gate. Everyone has to make sacrifices for the sake of the country at such moments. We had to rise above party; and I am proud to say we never gave party a second thought. We stuck to—
CONRAD. Office?
SURGE [turning on him] Yes, sir, to office: that is, to responsibility, to danger, to heart-sickening toil, to abuse and misunderstanding, to a martyrdom that made us envy the very soldiers in the trenches. If you had had to live for months on aspirin and bromide of potassium to get a wink of sleep, you wouldn't talk about office as if it were a catch.
FRANKLYN. Still, you admit that under our parliamentary system Lubin could not have helped himself?
BURGE. On that subject my lips are closed. Nothing will induce me to say one word against the old man. I never have; and I never will. Lubin is old: he has never been a real statesman: he is as lazy as a cat on a hearthrug: you cant get him to attend to anything: he is good for nothing but getting up and making speeches with a peroration that goes down with the back benches. But I say nothing against him. I gather that you do not think much of me as a statesman; but at all events I can get things done. I can hustle: even you will admit that. But Lubin! Oh my stars, Lubin!! If you only knew—
The parlor maid opens the door and announces a visitor.
THE PARLOR MAID. Mr Lubin.
SURGE [bounding from his chair] Lubin! Is this a conspiracy?
They all rise in amazement, staring at the door. Lubin enters: a man at the end of his sixties, a Yorkshireman with the last traces of Scandinavian flax still in his white hair, undistinguished in stature, unassuming in his manner, and taking his simple dignity for granted, but wonderfully comfortable and quite self-assured in contrast to the intellectual restlessness of Franklyn and the mesmeric self-assertiveness of Burge. His presence suddenly brings out the fact that they are unhappy men, ill at ease, square pegs in round holes, whilst he flourishes like a primrose.
The parlor maid withdraws.
LUBIN [coming to Franklyn] How do you do, Mr Barnabas? [He speaks very comfortably and kindly, much as if he were the host, and Franklyn an embarrassed but welcome guest]. I had the pleasure of meeting you once at the Mansion House. I think it was to celebrate the conclusion of the hundred years peace with America.
FRANKLYN [shaking hands] It was long before that: a meeting about Venezuela, when we were on the point of going to war with America.
LUBIN [not at all put out] Yes: you are quite right. I knew it was something about America. [He pats Franklyn's hand]. And how have you been all this time? Well, eh?
FRANKLYN [smiling to soften the sarcasm] A few vicissitudes of health naturally in so long a time.
LUBIN. Just so. Just so. [Looking round at Savvy] The young lady is—?
FRANKLYN. My daughter, Savvy.
Savvy comes from the window between her father and Lubin.
LUBIN [taking her hand affectionately in both his] And why has she never come to see us?
BURGE. I don't know whether you have noticed, Lubin, that I am present.
Savvy takes advantage of this diversion to slip away to the settee, where she is stealthily joined by Haslam, who sits down on her left.
LUBIN [seating himself in Burge's chair with ineffable comfortableness] My dear Burge: if you imagine that it is possible to be within ten miles of your energetic presence without being acutely aware of it, you do yourself the greatest injustice. How are you? And how are your good newspaper friends? [Burge makes an explosive movement; but Lubin goes on calmly and sweetly] And what are you doing here with my old friend Barnabas, if I may ask?
BURGE [sitting down in Conrad's chair, leaving him standing uneasily in the corner] Well, just what you are doing, if you want to know. I am trying to enlist Mr Barnabas's valuable support for my party.
LUBIN. Your party, eh? The newspaper party?
BURGE. The Liberal Party. The party of which I have the honor to be leader.
LUBIN. Have you now? Thats very interesting; for I thought I was the leader of the Liberal Party. However, it is very kind of you to take it off my hands, if the party will let you.
BURGE. Do you suggest that I have not the support and confidence of the party?
LUBIN. I dont suggest anything, my dear Burge. Mr Barnabas will tell you that we all think very highly of you. The country owes you a great deal. During the war, you did very creditably over the munitions; and if you were not quite so successful with the peace, nobody doubted that you meant well.
BURGE. Very kind of you, Lubin. Let me remark that you cannot lead a progressive party without getting a move on.
LUBIN. You mean you cannot. I did it for ten years without the least difficulty. And very comfortable, prosperous, pleasant years they were.
BURGE. Yes; but what did they end in?
LUBIN. In you, Burge. You don't complain of that, do you?
BURGE [fiercely] In plague, pestilence, and famine; battle, murder, and sudden death.
LUBIN [with an appreciative chuckle] The Nonconformist can quote the prayer-book for his own purposes, I see. How you enjoyed yourself over that business, Burge! Do you remember the Knock-Out Blow?
BURGE. It came off: don't forget that. Do you remember fighting to the last drop of your blood?
LUBIN [unruffled, to Franklyn] By the way, I remember your brother Conrad—a wonderful brain and a dear good fellow—explaining to me that I couldn't fight to the last drop of my blood, because I should be dead long before I came to it. Most interesting, and quite true. He was introduced to me at a meeting where the suffragettes kept disturbing me. They had to be carried out kicking and making a horrid disturbance.
CONRAD. No: it was later, at a meeting to support the Franchise Bill which gave them the vote.
LUBIN [discovering Conrad's presence for the first time] Youre right: it was. I knew it had something to do with women. My memory never deceives me. Thank you. Will you introduce me to this gentleman, Barnabas?
CONRAD [not at all affably] I am the Conrad in question. [He sits down in dudgeon on the vacant Chippendale].
LUBIN. Are you? [Looking at him pleasantly] Yes: of course you are. I never forget a face. But [with an arch turn of his eyes to Savvy] your pretty niece engaged all my powers of vision.
BURGE. I wish youd be serious, Lubin. God knows we have passed through times terrible enough to make any man serious.
LUBIN. I do not think I need to be reminded of that. In peace time I used to keep myself fresh for my work by banishing all worldly considerations from my mind on Sundays; but war has no respect for the Sabbath; and there have been Sundays within the last few years on which I have had to play as many as sixty-six games of bridge to keep my mind off the news from the front.
BURGE [scandalized] Sixty-six games of bridge on Sunday!!!
LUBIN. You probably sang sixty-six hymns. But as I cannot boast either your admirable voice or your spiritual fervor, I had to fall back on bridge.
FRANKLYN. If I may go back to the subject of your visit, it seems to me that you may both be completely superseded by the Labor Party.
BURGE. But I am in the truest sense myself a Labor leader. I—[he stops, as Lubin has risen with a half-suppressed yawn, and is already talking calmly, but without a pretence of interest].
LUBIN. The Labor Party! Oh no, Mr Barnabas. No, no, no, no, no. [He moves in Savvy's direction]. There will be no trouble about that. Of course we must give them a few seats: more, I quite admit, than we should have dreamt of leaving to them before the war; but—[by this time he has reached the sofa where Savvy and Haslam are seated. He sits down between them; takes