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Savvy. Who did you say your favorite poet was? Savvy I don’t make pets of poets. Who’s yours? Lubin Horace. Savvy Horace who? Lubin Quintus Horatius Flaccus: the noblest Roman of them all, my dear. Savvy Oh, if he is dead, that explains it. I have a theory that all the dead people we feel especially interested in must have been ourselves. You must be Horace’s reincarnation. Lubin Delighted. That is the very most charming and penetrating and intelligent thing that has ever been said to me. Barnabas: will you exchange daughters with me? I can give you your choice of two. Franklyn Man proposes. Savvy disposes. Lubin What does Savvy say? Burge Lubin: I came here to talk politics. Lubin Yes: you have only one subject, Burge. I came here to talk to Savvy. Take Burge into the next room, Barnabas; and let him rip. Burge Half-angry, half-indulgent. No; but really, Lubin, we are at a crisis⁠— Lubin My dear Burge, life is a disease; and the only difference between one man and another is the stage of the disease at which he lives. You are always at the crisis; I am always in the convalescent stage. I enjoy convalescence. It is the part that makes the illness worth while. Savvy Half-rising. Perhaps I’d better run away. I am distracting you. Lubin Making her sit down again. Not at all, my dear. You are only distracting Burge. Jolly good thing for him to be distracted by a pretty girl. Just what he needs. Burge I sometimes envy you, Lubin. The great movement of mankind, the giant sweep of the ages, passes you by and leaves you standing. Lubin It leaves me sitting, and quite comfortable, thank you. Go on sweeping. When you are tired of it, come back; and you will find England where it was, and me in my accustomed place, with Miss Savvy telling me all sorts of interesting things. Savvy Who has been growing more and more restless. Don’t let him shut you up, Mr. Burge. You know, Mr. Lubin, I am frightfully interested in the Labor movement, and in Theosophy, and in reconstruction after the war, and all sorts of things. I daresay the flappers in your smart set are tremendously flattered when you sit beside them and are nice to them as you are being nice to me; but I am not smart; and I am no use as a flapper. I am dowdy and serious. I want you to be serious. If you refuse, I shall go and sit beside Mr. Burge, and ask him to hold my hand. Lubin He wouldn’t know how to do it, my dear. Burge has a reputation as a profligate⁠— Burge Starting. Lubin: this is monstrous. I⁠— Lubin Continuing.⁠—but he is really a model of domesticity. His name is coupled with all the most celebrated beauties; but for him there is only one woman; and that is not you, my dear, but his very charming wife. Burge You are destroying my character in the act of pretending to save it. Have the goodness to confine yourself to your own character and your own wife. Both of them need all your attention. Lubin I have the privilege of my age and of my transparent innocence. I have not to struggle with your volcanic energy. Burge With an immense sense of power. No, by George! Franklyn I think I shall speak both for my brother and myself, and possibly also for my daughter, if I say that since the object of your visit and Mr. Joyce Burge’s is to some extent political, we should hear with great interest something about your political aims, Mr. Lubin. Lubin Assenting with complete good humor, and becoming attentive, clear, and businesslike in his tone. By all means, Mr. Barnabas. What we have to consider first, I take it, is what prospect there is of our finding you beside us in the House after the next election. Franklyn When I speak of politics, Mr. Lubin, I am not thinking of elections, or available seats, or party funds, or the registers, or even, I am sorry to have to add, of parliament as it exists at present. I had much rather you talked about bridge than about electioneering: it is the more interesting game of the two. Burge He wants to discuss principles, Lubin. Lubin Very cool and clear. I understand Mr. Barnabas quite well. But elections are unsettled things; principles are settled things. Conrad Impatiently. Great Heavens!⁠— Lubin Interrupting him with quiet authority. One moment, Dr. Barnabas. The main principles on which modern civilized society is founded are pretty well understood among educated people. That is what our dangerously half-educated masses and their pet demagogues⁠—if Burge will excuse that expression⁠— Burge Don’t mind me. Go on. I shall have something to say presently. Lubin That is what our dangerously half-educated people do not realize. Take all this fuss about the Labor Party, with its imaginary new principles and new politics. The Labor members will find that the immutable laws of political economy take no more notice of their ambitions and aspirations than the law of gravitation. I speak, if I may say so, with knowledge; for I have made a special, study of the Labor question. Franklyn With interest and some surprise. Indeed? Lubin Yes. It occurred quite at the beginning of my career. I was asked to deliver an address to the students at the Working Men’s College; and I was strongly advised to comply, as Gladstone and Morley and others were doing that sort of thing at the moment. It was rather a troublesome job, because I had not gone into political economy at the time. As you know, at the university I was a classical scholar; and my profession was the Law. But I looked up the textbooks, and got up the case most carefully. I found that the correct view is that all this Trade Unionism and Socialism and so forth is founded on the ignorant delusion that wages and the production and distribution of wealth can be controlled by