Back to Methuselah

50 is seated writing in a well-furnished spacious study. He is dressed in black. His coat is a frock-coat; his tie is white; and his waistcoat, though it is not quite a clergyman’s waistcoat, and his collar, though it buttons in front instead of behind, combine with the prosperity indicated by his surroundings, and his air of personal distinction, to suggest the clerical dignitary. Still, he is clearly neither dean nor bishop; he is rather too starkly intellectual for a popular Free Church enthusiast; and he is not careworn enough to be a great headmaster.

The study windows, which have broad comfortable window seats, overlook Hampstead Heath towards London. Consequently, it being a fine afternoon in spring, the room is sunny. As you face these windows, you have on your right the fireplace, with a few logs smouldering in it, and a couple of comfortable library chairs on the hearthrug; beyond it and beside it the door; before you the writing-table, at which the clerical gentleman sits a little to your left facing the door with his right profile presented to you; on your left a settee; and on your right a couple of Chippendale chairs. There is also an upholstered square stool in the middle of the room, against the writing-table. The walls are covered with bookshelves above and lockers beneath.

The door opens; and another gentleman, shorter than the clerical one, within a year or two of the same age, dressed in a well-worn tweed lounge suit, with a short beard and much less style in his bearing and carriage, looks in.

The Clerical Gentleman	Familiar and by no means cordial. Hallo! I didn’t expect you until the five o’clock train.
The Tweeded Gentleman	Coming in very slowly. I have something on my mind. I thought I’d come early.
The Clerical Gentleman	Throwing down his pen. What is on your mind?
The Tweeded Gentleman	Sitting down on the stool, heavily preoccupied with his thought. I have made up my mind at last about the time. I make it three hundred years.
The Clerical Gentleman	Sitting up energetically. Now that is extraordinary. Most extraordinary. The very last words I wrote when you interrupted me were “at least three centuries.” He snatches up his manuscript, and points to it. Here it is: reading “the term of human life must be extended to at least three centuries.”
The Tweeded Gentleman	How did you arrive at it?
	A parlor maid opens the door, ushering in a young clergyman.
The Parlor Maid	Mr. Haslam. She withdraws.
	The visitor is so very unwelcome that his host forgets to rise; and the two brothers stare at the intruder, quite unable to conceal their dismay. Haslam, who has nothing clerical about him except his collar, and wears a snuff-colored suit, smiles with a frank school-boyishness that makes it impossible to be unkind to him, and explodes into obviously unpremeditated speech.
Haslam	I’m afraid I’m an awful nuisance. I’m the rector; and I suppose one ought to call on people.
The Tweeded Gentleman	In ghostly tones. We’re not Church people, you know.
Haslam	Oh, I don’t mind that, if you don’t. The Church people here are mostly as dull as ditch-water. I have heard such a lot about you; and there are so jolly few people to talk to. I thought you perhaps wouldn’t mind. Do you mind? for of course I’ll go like a shot if I’m in the way.
The Clerical Gentleman	Rising, disarmed. Sit down, Mr.⁠—er?
Haslam	Haslam.
The Clerical Gentleman	Mr. Haslam.
The Tweeded Gentleman	Rising and offering him the stool. Sit down. He retreats towards the Chippendale chairs.
Haslam	Sitting down on the stool. Thanks awfully.
The Clerical Gentleman	Resuming his seat. This is my brother Conrad, Professor of Biology at Jarrowfields University: Dr. Conrad Barnabas. My name is Franklyn: Franklyn Barnabas. I was in the Church myself for some years.
Haslam	Sympathizing. Yes: one can’t help it. If theres a living in the family, or one’s Governor knows a patron, one gets shoved into the Church by one’s parents.
Conrad	Sitting down on the furthest Chippendale with a snort of amusement. Mp!
Franklyn	One gets shoved out of it, sometimes, by one’s conscience.
Haslam	Oh yes; but where is a chap like me to go? I’m afraid I’m not intellectual enough to split straws when theres a job in front of me, and nothing better for me to do. I daresay the Church was a bit thick for you; but it’s good enough for me. It will last my time, anyhow. He laughs good-humoredly.
Franklyn	With renewed energy. There again! You see, Con. It will last his time. Life is too short for men to take it seriously.
Haslam	That’s a way of looking at it, certainly.
Franklyn	I was not shoved into the Church, Mr. Haslam: I felt it to be my vocation to walk with God, like Enoch. After twenty years of it I realized that I was walking with my own ignorance and self-conceit, and that I was not within a hundred and fifty years of the experience and wisdom I was pretending to.
Haslam	Now I come to think of it, old Methuselah must have had to think twice before he took on anything for life. If I thought I was going to live nine hundred and sixty years, I don’t think I should stay in the Church.
Franklyn	If men lived even a third of that time, the Church would be very different from the thing it is.
Conrad	If I could count on nine hundred and sixty years I could make myself a real biologist, instead of what I am now: a child trying to walk. Are you sure you might not become a good clergyman if you had a few centuries to do it in?
Haslam	Oh, theres nothing much the matter with me: it’s quite easy to be a decent parson. It’s the Church that chokes me off. I couldn’t stick it for nine hundred years. I should chuck