Short Plays

they all adore him. The invitations for six garden parties and fourteen dances have been cancelled for all the subalterns in Chubbs’s regiment. Mitchener attempts to shoot himself. Balsquith Seizing the pistol. No: your country needs you, Mitchener. Mitchener Putting down the pistol. For my country’s sake. Balsquith, reassured, sits down. But what an infernal young fool Chubbs-Jenkinson is, not to know the standing of his man better! Why didn’t he know? It was his business to know. He ought to be flogged. Balsquith Probably he will be, by the other subalterns. Mitchener I hope so. Anyhow, out he goes. Out of the army. He or I. Balsquith Steady, steady. His father has subscribed a million to the party funds. We owe him a peerage. Mitchener I don’t care. Balsquith I do. How do you think parties are kept up? Not by the subscriptions of the local associations, I hope. They don’t pay for the gas at the meetings. Mitchener Man: can you not be serious? Here are we, face to face with Lady Richmond’s grave displeasure; and you talk to me about gas and subscriptions. Her own nephew!!!!! Balsquith Gloomily. It’s unfortunate. He was at Oxford with Bobby Bessborough. Mitchener Worse and worse. What shall we do? A Voice in the Street Votes for Women! Votes for Women! A terrific explosion shakes the building. They take no notice. Mitchener Breaking down. You don’t know what this means to me, Balsquith. I love the army. I love my country. Balsquith It certainly is rather awkward. The Orderly comes in. Mitchener Angrily. What is it? How dare you interrupt us like this? The Orderly Didn’t you hear the explosion, sir? Mitchener Explosion. What explosion? No: I heard no explosion: I have something more serious to attend to than explosions. Great Heavens! Lady Richmond’s nephew has been treated like any common laborer; and while England is reeling under the shock, a private walks in and asks me if I heard an explosion. Balsquith By the way, what was the explosion? The Orderly Only a sort of bombshell, sir. Balsquith Bombshell! The Orderly A pasteboard one, sir. Full of papers with Votes for Women in red letters. Fired into the yard from the roof of the Alliance Office. Mitchener Pooh! Go away. Go away. The Orderly, bewildered, goes out. Balsquith Mitchener: you can save the country yet. Put on your full dress uniform and your medals and orders and so forth. Get a guard of honor⁠—something showy⁠—horse guards or something of that sort; and call on the old girl⁠— Mitchener The old girl? Balsquith Well, Lady Richmond. Apologize to her. Ask her leave to accept the command. Tell her that you’ve made the curate your adjutant or your aide-de-camp or whatever is the proper thing. By the way, what can you make him? Mitchener I might make him my chaplain. I don’t see why I shouldn’t have a chaplain on my staff. He showed a very proper spirit in punching that young cub’s head. I should have done the same myself. Balsquith Then I’ve your promise to take command if Lady Richmond consents? Mitchener On condition that I have a free hand. No nonsense about public opinion or democracy. Balsquith As far as possible, I think I may say yes. Mitchener Rising intolerantly and going to the hearthrug. That won’t do for me. Don’t be weak-kneed, Balsquith. You know perfectly well that the real government of this country is and always must be the government of the masses by the classes. You know that democracy is damned nonsense, and that no class stands less of it than the working class. You know that we are already discussing the steps that will have to be taken if the country should ever be face to face with the possibility of a Labor majority in parliament. You know that in that case we should disfranchise the mob, and if they made a fuss, shoot them down. You know that if we need public opinion to support us, we can get any quantity of it manufactured in our papers by poor devils of journalists who will sell their souls for five shillings. You know⁠— Balsquith Stop. Stop, I say. I don’t know. That is the difference between your job and mine, Mitchener. After twenty years in the army a man thinks he knows everything. After twenty months in the Cabinet he knows that he knows nothing. Mitchener We learn from history⁠— Balsquith We learn from history that men never learn anything from history. That’s not my own: it’s Hegel. Mitchener Who’s Hegel? Balsquith Dead. A German philosopher. He half rises, but recollects something and sits down again. Oh, confound it: that reminds me. The Germans have laid down four more Dreadnoughts. Mitchener Then you must lay down twelve. Balsquith Oh yes: it’s easy to say that; but think of what they’ll cost. Mitchener Think of what it would cost to be invaded by Germany and forced to pay an indemnity of five hundred millions. Balsquith But you said that if you got compulsory military service there would be an end of the danger of invasion. Mitchener On the contrary, my dear fellow, it increases the danger tenfold, because it increases German jealousy of our military supremacy. Balsquith After all, why should the Germans invade us? Mitchener Why shouldn’t they? What else has their army to do? What else are they building a navy for? Balsquith Well, we never think of invading Germany. Mitchener Yes, we do. I have thought of nothing else for the last ten years. Say what you will, Balsquith, the Germans have never recognized, and until they get a stern lesson, they never will recognize, the plain fact that the interests of the British Empire are paramount, and that the command of the sea belongs by nature to England. Balsquith But if they won’t recognize it, what can I do? Mitchener Shoot them down. Balsquith I can’t shoot them down. Mitchener Yes you can. You don’t realize it; but if you fire a rifle into a German he drops just as surely as a rabbit does. Balsquith But dash it all, man, a rabbit hasn’t got a rifle and