Back to Methuselah

three hundred years! They’d murder her if she didn’t murder them first. Lubin By the way, Barnabas, is your daughter to keep her good looks all the time? Franklyn Will it matter? Can you conceive the most hardened flirt going on flirting for three centuries? At the end of half the time we shall hardly notice whether it is a woman or a man we are speaking to. Lubin Not quite relishing this ascetic prospect. Hm! He rises. Ah, well: you must come and tell my wife and my young people all about it; and you will bring your daughter with you, of course. He shakes hands with Savvy. Goodbye. He shakes hands with Franklyn. Goodbye, Doctor. He shakes hands with Conrad. Come on, Burge: you must really tell me what line you are going to take about the Church at the election? Burge Haven’t you heard? Haven’t you taken in the revelation that has been vouchsafed to us? The line I am going to take is Back to Methuselah. Lubin Decisively. Don’t be ridiculous, Burge. You don’t suppose, do you, that our friends here are in earnest, or that our very pleasant conversation has had anything to do with practical politics! They have just been pulling our legs very wittily. Come along. He goes out, Franklyn politely going with him, but shaking his head in mute protest. Burge Shaking Conrad’s hand. It’s beyond the old man, Doctor. No spiritual side to him: only a sort of classical side that goes down with his own set. Besides, he’s done, gone, past, burnt out, burst up; thinks he is our leader and is only our rag and bottle department. But you may depend on me. I will work this stunt of yours in. I see its value. He begins moving towards the door with Conrad. Of course I can’t put it exactly in your way; but you are quite right about our needing something fresh; and I believe an election can be fought on the death rate and on Adam and Eve as scientific facts. It will take the Opposition right out of its depth. And if we win there will be an O.M. for somebody when the first honors list comes round. By this time he has talked himself out of the room and out of earshot, Conrad accompanying him. Savvy and Haslam, left alone, seize each other in an ecstasy of amusement, and jazz to the settee, where they sit down again side by side. Haslam Caressing her. Darling! what a priceless humbug old Lubin is! Savvy Oh, sweet old thing! I love him. Burge is a flaming fraud if you like. Haslam Did you notice one thing? It struck me as rather curious. Savvy What? Haslam Lubin and your father have both survived the war. But their sons were killed in it. Savvy Sobered. Yes. Jim’s death killed mother. Haslam And they never said a word about it! Savvy Well, why should they? The subject didn’t come up. I forgot about it too; and I was very fond of Jim. Haslam I didn’t forget it, because I’m of military age; and if I hadn’t been a parson I’d have had to go out and be killed too. To me the awful thing about their political incompetence was that they had to kill their own sons. It was the war casualty lists and the starvation afterwards that finished me up with politics and the Church and everything else except you. Savvy Oh, I was just as bad as any of them. I sold flags in the streets in my best clothes; and⁠—hsh! She jumps up and pretends to be looking for a book on the shelves behind the settee. Franklyn and Conrad return, looking weary and glum. Conrad Well, that’s how The Gospel of the Brothers Barnabas is going to be received! He drops into Burge’s chair. Franklyn Going back to his seat at the table. It’s no use. Were you convinced, Mr. Haslam? Haslam About our being able to live three hundred years? Frankly no. Conrad To Savvy. Nor you, I suppose? Savvy Oh, I don’t know. I thought I was for a moment. I can believe, in a sort of way, that people might live for three hundred years. But when you came down to tin tacks, and said that the parlor maid might, then I saw how absurd it was. Franklyn Just so. We had better hold our tongues about it, Con. We should only be laughed at, and lose the little credit we earned on false pretences in the days of our ignorance. Conrad I daresay. But Creative Evolution doesn’t stop while people are laughing. Laughing may even lubricate its job. Savvy What does that mean? Conrad It means that the first man to live three hundred years mayn’t have the slightest notion that he is going to do it, and may be the loudest laugher of the lot. Savvy Or the first woman? Conrad Assenting. Or the first woman. Haslam Well, it won’t be one of us, anyhow. Franklyn How do you know? This is unanswerable. None of them have anything more to say.

Part III

The Thing Happens

AD 2170

A summer afternoon in the year 2170 AD. The official parlor of the President of the British Islands. A board table, long enough for three chairs at each side besides the presidential chair at the head and an ordinary chair at the foot, occupies the breadth of the room. On the table, opposite every chair, a small switchboard with a dial. There is no fireplace. The end wall is a silvery screen nearly as large as a pair of folding doors. The door is on your left as you face the screen; and there is a row of thick pegs, padded and covered with velvet, beside it.

A stoutish middle-aged man, good-looking and breezily genial, dressed in a silk smock, stockings,