{"id":311,"date":"2014-06-19T16:16:13","date_gmt":"2014-06-19T16:16:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/englishliterature\/?post_type=chapter&#038;p=311"},"modified":"2014-09-26T18:58:22","modified_gmt":"2014-09-26T18:58:22","slug":"major-barbara-act-ii","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/englishliterature\/chapter\/major-barbara-act-ii\/","title":{"raw":"Major Barbara: Act II","rendered":"Major Barbara: Act II"},"content":{"raw":"The yard of the West Ham shelter of the Salvation Army is a cold place on a January morning. The building itself, an old warehouse, is newly whitewashed. Its gabled end projects into the yard in the middle, with a door on the ground floor, and another in the loft above it without any balcony or ladder, but with a pulley rigged over it for hoisting sacks. Those who come from this central gable end into the yard have the gateway leading to the street on their left, with a stone horse-trough just beyond it, and, on the right, a penthouse shielding a table from the weather. There are forms[footnote]Benches.[\/footnote]\u00a0at the table; and on them are seated a man and a woman, both much down on their luck, finishing a meal of bread [one thick slice each, with margarine and golden syrup] and diluted milk.\r\n\r\nThe man, a workman out of employment, is young, agile, a talker, a poser, sharp enough to be capable of anything in reason except honesty or altruistic considerations of any kind. The woman is a commonplace old bundle of poverty and hard-worn humanity. She looks sixty and probably is forty-five. If they were rich people, gloved and muffed and well wrapped up in furs and overcoats, they would be numbed and miserable; for it is a grindingly cold, raw, January day; and a glance at the background of grimy warehouses and leaden sky visible over the whitewashed walls of the yard would drive any idle rich person straight to the Mediterranean. But these two, being no more troubled with visions of the Mediterranean than of the moon, and being compelled to keep more of their clothes in the pawnshop, and less on their persons, in winter than in summer, are not depressed by the cold: rather are they stung into vivacity, to which their meal has just now given an almost jolly turn. The man takes a pull at his mug, and then gets up and moves about the yard with his hands deep in his pockets, occasionally breaking into a stepdance.\r\n\r\nThe Woman. Feel better arter[footnote]After.[\/footnote]\u00a0your meal, sir?\r\n\r\nThe Man. No. Call that a meal! Good enough for you, praps; but wot is it to me, an intelligent workin man.\r\n\r\nThe Woman. Workin man! Wot are you?\r\n\r\nThe Man. Painter.\r\n\r\nThe Woman [sceptically] Yus, I dessay.\r\n\r\nThe Man. Yus, you dessay! I know. Every loafer that can\u2019t do nothink calls isself a painter. Well, I\u2019m a real painter: grainer, finisher, thirty-eight bob a week when I can get it.\r\n\r\nThe Woman. Then why don\u2019t you go and get it?\r\n\r\nThe Man. I\u2019ll tell you why. Fust: I\u2019m intelligent \u2014 fffff! it\u2019s rotten cold here [he dances a step or two]\u2014 yes: intelligent beyond the station o life into which it has pleased the capitalists to call me; and they don\u2019t like a man that sees through em. Second, an intelligent bein needs a doo share of appiness; so I drink somethink cruel when I get the chawnce. Third, I stand by my class and do as little as I can so\u2019s to leave arf the job for me fellow workers. Fourth, I\u2019m fly[footnote]Clever.[\/footnote]\u00a0enough to know wots inside the law and wots outside it; and inside it I do as the capitalists do: pinch wot I can lay me ands on. In a proper state of society I am sober, industrious and honest: in Rome, so to speak, I do as the Romans do. Wots the consequence? When trade is bad \u2014 and it\u2019s rotten bad just now \u2014 and the employers az to sack arf their men, they generally start on me.\r\n\r\nThe Woman. What\u2019s your name?\r\n\r\nThe Man. Price. Bronterre O\u2019Brien Price[footnote]Price was named after James Bronterre O\u2019Brien (1805-1964), an Irish journalist and Chartist leader.[\/footnote]. Usually called Snobby Price, for short.\r\n\r\nThe Woman. Snobby\u2019s a carpenter, ain\u2019t it? You said you was a painter.\r\n\r\nPrice. Not that kind of snob, but the genteel sort. I\u2019m too uppish, owing to my intelligence, and my father being a Chartist[footnote]Chartism was a workng-class movement beginnng in 1837, whose six demands were listed in <em>The People\u2019s Charter<\/em> of 1838. Their demands included manhood suffrage, vote by ballot, and abolition of property qualification for MPs.[\/footnote]\u00a0and a reading, thinking man: a stationer, too. I\u2019m none of your common hewers of wood and drawers of water; and don\u2019t you forget it. [He returns to his seat at the table, and takes up his mug]. Wots YOUR name?\r\n\r\nThe Woman. Rummy Mitchens, sir.\r\n\r\nPrice [quaffing the remains of his milk to her] Your elth, Miss Mitchens.\r\n\r\nRummy [correcting him] Missis Mitchens.\r\n\r\nPrice. Wot! Oh Rummy, Rummy! Respectable married woman, Rummy, gittin rescued by the Salvation Army by pretendin to be a bad un. Same old game!\r\n\r\nRummy. What am I to do? I can\u2019t starve. Them Salvation lasses is dear good girls; but the better you are, the worse they likes to think you were before they rescued you. Why shouldn\u2019t they av a bit o credit, poor loves? They\u2019re worn to rags by their work. And where would they get the money to rescue us if we was to let on we\u2019re no worse than other people? You know what ladies and gentlemen are.\r\n\r\nPrice. Thievin swine! Wish I ad their job, Rummy, all the same. Wot does Rummy stand for? Pet name props?\r\n\r\nRummy. Short for Romola.\r\n\r\nPrice. For wot!?\r\n\r\nRummy. Romola. It was out of a new book[footnote]<em>Romola<\/em> (1863). A novel by George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans).[\/footnote]. Somebody me mother wanted me to grow up like.\r\n\r\nPrice. We\u2019re companions in misfortune, Rummy. Both on us got names that nobody cawnt pronounce. Consequently I\u2019m Snobby and you\u2019re Rummy because Bill and Sally wasn\u2019t good enough for our parents. Such is life!\r\n\r\nRummy. Who saved you, Mr. Price? Was it Major Barbara?\r\n\r\nPrice. No: I come here on my own. I\u2019m goin to be Bronterre O\u2019Brien Price, the converted painter. I know wot they like. I\u2019ll tell em how I blasphemed and gambled and wopped my poor old mother\u00a0\u2014\r\n\r\nRummy [shocked] Used you to beat your mother?\r\n\r\nPrice. Not likely. She used to beat me. No matter: you come and listen to the converted painter, and you\u2019ll hear how she was a pious woman that taught me me prayers at er knee, an how I used to come home drunk and drag her out o bed be er snow white airs, an lam into er with the poker.\r\n\r\nRummy. That\u2019s what\u2019s so unfair to us women. Your confessions is just as big lies as ours: you don\u2019t tell what you really done no more than us; but you men can tell your lies right out at the meetins and be made much of for it; while the sort o confessions we az to make az to be wispered to one lady at a time. It ain\u2019t right, spite of all their piety.\r\n\r\nPrice. Right! Do you spose the Army\u2019d be allowed if it went and did right? Not much. It combs our air and makes us good little blokes to be robbed and put upon. But I\u2019ll play the game as good as any of em. I\u2019ll see somebody struck by lightnin, or hear a voice sayin \u201cSnobby Price: where will you spend eternity?\u201d I\u2019ll ave a time of it, I tell you.\r\n\r\nRummy. You won\u2019t be let drink, though.\r\n\r\nPrice. I\u2019ll take it out in gorspellin[footnote]Gospelling, preaching.[\/footnote], then. I don\u2019t want to drink if I can get fun enough any other way.\r\n\r\nJenny Hill, a pale, overwrought, pretty Salvation lass of 18, comes in through the yard gate, leading Peter Shirley, a half hardened, half worn-out elderly man, weak with hunger.\r\n\r\nJenny [supporting him] Come! pluck up. I\u2019ll get you something to eat. You\u2019ll be all right then.\r\n\r\nPrice [rising and hurrying officiously to take the old man off Jenny\u2019s hands] Poor old man! Cheer up, brother: you\u2019ll find rest and peace and appiness ere. Hurry up with the food, miss: e\u2019s fair done. [Jenny hurries into the shelter]. Ere, buck up, daddy! She\u2019s fetchin y\u2019a thick slice o breadn treacle, an a mug o skyblue[footnote]Skimmed milk.[\/footnote]. [He seats him at the corner of the table].\r\n\r\nRummy [gaily] Keep up your old art! Never say die!\r\n\r\nShirley. I\u2019m not an old man. I\u2019m ony 46. I\u2019m as good as ever I was. The grey patch come in my hair before I was thirty. All it wants is three pennorth o hair dye: am I to be turned on the streets to starve for it? Holy God! I\u2019ve worked ten to twelve hours a day since I was thirteen, and paid my way all through; and now am I to be thrown into the gutter and my job given to a young man that can do it no better than me because I\u2019ve black hair that goes white at the first change?\r\n\r\nPrice [cheerfully] No good jawrin[footnote]Jawing, talking.[\/footnote]\u00a0about it. You\u2019re ony a jumped-up, jerked-off, orspittle[footnote]Hospital. Turned away by the hospitals.[\/footnote]-turned-out incurable of an ole workin man: who cares about you? Eh? Make the thievin swine give you a meal: they\u2019ve stole many a one from you. Get a bit o your own back. [Jenny returns with the usual meal]. There you are, brother. Awsk a blessin an tuck that into you.\r\n\r\nShirley [looking at it ravenously but not touching it, and crying like a child] I never took anything before.\r\n\r\nJenny [petting him] Come, come! the Lord sends it to you: he wasn\u2019t above taking bread from his friends; and why should you be? Besides, when we find you a job you can pay us for it if you like.\r\n\r\nShirley [eagerly] Yes, yes: that\u2019s true. I can pay you back: it\u2019s only a loan. [Shivering] Oh Lord! oh Lord! [He turns to the table and attacks the meal ravenously].\r\n\r\nJenny. Well, Rummy, are you more comfortable now?\r\n\r\nRummy. God bless you, lovey! You\u2019ve fed my body and saved my soul, haven\u2019t you? [Jenny, touched, kisses her] Sit down and rest a bit: you must be ready to drop.\r\n\r\nJenny. I\u2019ve been going hard since morning. But there\u2019s more work than we can do. I mustn\u2019t stop.\r\n\r\nRummy. Try a prayer for just two minutes. You\u2019ll work all the better after.\r\n\r\nJenny [her eyes lighting up] Oh isn\u2019t it wonderful how a few minutes prayer revives you! I was quite lightheaded at twelve o\u2019clock, I was so tired; but Major Barbara just sent me to pray for five minutes; and I was able to go on as if I had only just begun. [To Price] Did you have a piece of bread?\r\n\r\nPaige [with unction] Yes, miss; but I\u2019ve got the piece that I value more; and that\u2019s the peace that passeth hall hannerstennin[footnote]\u201cThe peace of God which passeth all understanding\u201d (Philippians 4:7).[\/footnote].\r\n\r\nRummy [fervently] Glory Hallelujah!\r\n\r\nBill Walker, a rough customer of about 25, appears at the yard gate and looks malevolently at Jenny.\r\n\r\nJenny. That makes me so happy. When you say that, I feel wicked for loitering here. I must get to work again.\r\n\r\nShe is hurrying to the shelter, when the new-comer moves quickly up to the door and intercepts her. His manner is so threatening that she retreats as he comes at her truculently, driving her down the yard.\r\n\r\nBill. I know you. You\u2019re the one that took away my girl. You\u2019re the one that set er agen me. Well, I\u2019m goin to av er out[footnote]That is, have her out of the shelter.[\/footnote]. Not that I care a curse for her or you: see? But I\u2019ll let er know; and I\u2019ll let you know. I\u2019m goin to give er a doin that\u2019ll teach er to cut away from me. Now in with you and tell er to come out afore I come in and kick er out. Tell er Bill Walker wants er. She\u2019ll know what that means; and if she keeps me waitin it\u2019ll be worse. You stop to jaw back at me; and I\u2019ll start on you: d\u2019ye hear? There\u2019s your way. In you go. [He takes her by the arm and slings her towards the door of the shelter. She falls on her hand and knee. Rummy helps her up again].\r\n\r\nPrice [rising, and venturing irresolutely towards Bill]. Easy there, mate. She ain\u2019t doin you no arm.\r\n\r\nBill. Who are you callin mate? [Standing over him threateningly]. You\u2019re goin to stand up for her, are you? Put up your ands.\r\n\r\nRummy [running indignantly to him to scold him]. Oh, you great brute \u2014 [He instantly swings his left hand back against her face. She screams and reels back to the trough, where she sits down, covering her bruised face with her hands and rocking and moaning with pain].\r\n\r\nJenny [going to her]. Oh God forgive you! How could you strike an old woman like that?\r\n\r\nBill [seizing her by the hair so violently that she also screams, and tearing her away from the old woman]. You Gawd forgive me again and I\u2019ll Gawd forgive you one on the jaw that\u2019ll stop you prayin for a week. [Holding her and turning fiercely on Price]. Av you anything to say agen it? Eh?\r\n\r\nPrice [intimidated]. No, matey: she ain\u2019t anything to do with me.\r\n\r\nBill. Good job for you! I\u2019d put two meals into you and fight you with one finger after, you starved cur. [To Jenny] Now are you goin to fetch out Mog Habbijam[footnote]The name of Walker\u2019s girlfriend. Possibly Maude Havisham or Haversham.[\/footnote]; or am I to knock your face off you and fetch her myself?\r\n\r\nJenny [writhing in his grasp] Oh please someone go in and tell Major Barbara \u2014[she screams again as he wrenches her head down; and Price and Rummy, flee into the shelter].\r\n\r\nBill. You want to go in and tell your Major of me, do you?\r\n\r\nJenny. Oh please don\u2019t drag my hair. Let me go.\r\n\r\nBill. Do you or don\u2019t you? [She stifles a scream]. Yes or no.\r\n\r\nJenny. God give me strength\u00a0\u2014\r\n\r\nBill [striking her with his fist in the face] Go and show her that, and tell her if she wants one like it to come and interfere with me. [Jenny, crying with pain, goes into the shed. He goes to the form and addresses the old man]. Here: finish your mess; and get out o my way.\r\n\r\nShirley [springing up and facing him fiercely, with the mug in his hand] You take a liberty with me, and I\u2019ll smash you over the face with the mug and cut your eye out. Ain\u2019t you satisfied \u2014 young whelps like you \u2014 with takin the bread out o the mouths of your elders that have brought you up and slaved for you, but you must come shovin and cheekin and bullyin in here, where the bread o charity is sickenin in our stummicks?\r\n\r\nBill [contemptuously, but backing a little] Wot good are you, you old palsy mug? Wot good are you?\r\n\r\nShirley. As good as you and better. I\u2019ll do a day\u2019s work agen you or any fat young soaker of your age. Go and take my job at Horrockses[footnote]Horrocks, a cotton mill in Preston, Lancashire.[\/footnote], where I worked for ten year. They want young men there: they can\u2019t afford to keep men over forty-five. They\u2019re very sorry \u2014 give you a character[footnote]Letter of reference.[\/footnote]\u00a0and happy to help you to get anything suited to your years \u2014 sure a steady man won\u2019t be long out of a job. Well, let em try you. They\u2019ll find the differ. What do you know? Not as much as how to beeyave yourself \u2014 layin your dirty fist across the mouth of a respectable woman!\r\n\r\nBill. Don\u2019t provoke me to lay it acrost yours: d\u2019ye hear?\r\n\r\nShirley [with blighting contempt] Yes: you like an old man to hit, don\u2019t you, when you\u2019ve finished with the women. I ain\u2019t seen you hit a young one yet.\r\n\r\nBill [stung] You lie, you old soupkitchener, you. There was a young man here. Did I offer to hit him or did I not?\r\n\r\nShirley. Was he starvin or was he not? Was he a man or only a crosseyed thief an a loafer? Would you hit my son-in-law\u2019s brother?\r\n\r\nBill. Who\u2019s he?\r\n\r\nShirley. Todger Fairmile o Balls Pond[footnote]A road in Hackney, northeast London.[\/footnote]. Him that won 20 pounds off the Japanese wrastler at the music hall by standin out 17 minutes 4 seconds agen him.\r\n\r\nBill [sullenly] I\u2019m no music hall wrastler. Can he box?\r\n\r\nShirley. Yes: an you can\u2019t.\r\n\r\nBill. Wot! I can\u2019t, can\u2019t I? Wot\u2019s that you say [threatening him]?\r\n\r\nShirley [not budging an inch] Will you box Todger Fairmile if I put him on to you? Say the word.\r\n\r\nBill. [subsiding with a slouch] I\u2019ll stand up to any man alive, if he was ten Todger Fairmiles. But I don\u2019t set up to be a perfessional.\r\n\r\nShirley [looking down on him with unfathomable disdain] YOU box! Slap an old woman with the back o your hand! You hadn\u2019t even the sense to hit her where a magistrate couldn\u2019t see the mark of it, you silly young lump of conceit and ignorance. Hit a girl in the jaw and ony make her cry! If Todger Fairmile\u2019d done it, she wouldn\u2019t a got up inside o ten minutes, no more than you would if he got on to you. Yah! I\u2019d set about you myself if I had a week\u2019s feedin in me instead o two months starvation. [He returns to the table to finish his meal].\r\n\r\nBill [following him and stooping over him to drive the taunt in] You lie! you have the bread and treacle in you that you come here to beg.\r\n\r\nShirley [bursting into tears] Oh God! it\u2019s true: I\u2019m only an old pauper on the scrap heap. [Furiously] But you\u2019ll come to it yourself; and then you\u2019ll know. You\u2019ll come to it sooner than a teetotaller like me, fillin yourself with gin at this hour o the mornin!\r\n\r\nBill. I\u2019m no gin drinker, you old liar; but when I want to give my girl a bloomin good idin I like to av a bit o devil in me: see? An here I am, talkin to a rotten old blighter like you sted o givin her wot for[footnote]A beating.[\/footnote]. [Working himself into a rage] I\u2019m goin in there to fetch her out. [He makes vengefully for the shelter door].\r\n\r\nShirley. You\u2019re goin to the station on a stretcher, more likely; and they\u2019ll take the gin and the devil out of you there when they get you inside. You mind what you\u2019re about: the major here is the Earl o Stevenage\u2019s granddaughter.\r\n\r\nBill [checked] Garn!\r\n\r\nShirley. You\u2019ll see.\r\n\r\nBill [his resolution oozing] Well, I ain\u2019t done nothin to er.\r\n\r\nShirley. Spose she said you did! who\u2019d believe you?\r\n\r\nBill [very uneasy, skulking back to the corner of the penthouse] Gawd! There\u2019s no jastice in this country. To think wot them people can do! I\u2019m as good as er.\r\n\r\nShirley. Tell her so. It\u2019s just what a fool like you would do.\r\n\r\nBarbara, brisk and businesslike, comes from the shelter with a note book, and addresses herself to Shirley. Bill, cowed, sits down in the corner on a form, and turns his back on them.\r\n\r\nBarbara. Good morning.\r\n\r\nShirley [standing up and taking off his hat] Good morning, miss.\r\n\r\nBarbara. Sit down: make yourself at home. [He hesitates; but she puts a friendly hand on his shoulder and makes him obey]. Now then! since you\u2019ve made friends with us, we want to know all about you. Names and addresses and trades.\r\n\r\nShirley. Peter Shirley. Fitter. Chucked out two months ago because I was too old.\r\n\r\nBarbara [not at all surprised] You\u2019d pass still. Why didn\u2019t you dye your hair?\r\n\r\nShirley. I did. Me age come out at a coroner\u2019s inquest on me daughter.\r\n\r\nBarbara. Steady?\r\n\r\nShirley. Teetotaller. Never out of a job before. Good worker. And sent to the knackers[footnote]A knacker\u2019s yard is a slaughterhouse for horses.[\/footnote]\u00a0like an old horse!\r\n\r\nBarbara. No matter: if you did your part God will do his.\r\n\r\nShirley [suddenly stubborn] My religion\u2019s no concern of anybody but myself.\r\n\r\nBarbara [guessing] I know. Secularist[footnote]An ethical system founded on natural morality and opposed to the tenets of revealed religion.[\/footnote]?\r\n\r\nShirley [hotly] Did I offer to deny it?\r\n\r\nBarbara. Why should you? My own father\u2019s a Secularist, I think. Our Father \u2014 yours and mine \u2014 fulfils himself in many ways; and I daresay he knew what he was about when he made a Secularist of you. So buck up, Peter! we can always find a job for a steady man like you. [Shirley, disarmed, touches his hat. She turns from him to Bill]. What\u2019s your name?\r\n\r\nBill [insolently] Wot\u2019s that to you?\r\n\r\nBarbara [calmly making a note] Afraid to give his name. Any trade?\r\n\r\nBill. Who\u2019s afraid to give his name? [Doggedly, with a sense of heroically defying the House of Lords in the person of Lord Stevenage] If you want to bring a charge agen me, bring it. [She waits, unruffled]. My name\u2019s Bill Walker.\r\n\r\nBarbara [as if the name were familiar: trying to remember how] Bill Walker? [Recollecting] Oh, I know: you\u2019re the man that Jenny Hill was praying for inside just now. [She enters his name in her note book].\r\n\r\nBill. Who\u2019s Jenny Hill? And what call has she to pray for me?\r\n\r\nBarbara. I don\u2019t know. Perhaps it was you that cut her lip.\r\n\r\nBill [defiantly] Yes, it was me that cut her lip. I ain\u2019t afraid o you.\r\n\r\nBarbara. How could you be, since you\u2019re not afraid of God? You\u2019re a brave man, Mr. Walker. It takes some pluck to do our work here; but none of us dare lift our hand against a girl like that, for fear of her father in heaven.\r\n\r\nBill [sullenly] I want none o your cantin jaw. I suppose you think I come here to beg from you, like this damaged lot here. Not me. I don\u2019t want your bread and scrape and catlap[footnote]Milk.[\/footnote]. I don\u2019t believe in your Gawd, no more than you do yourself.\r\n\r\nBarbara [sunnily apologetic and ladylike, as on a new footing with him] Oh, I beg your pardon for putting your name down, Mr. Walker. I didn\u2019t understand. I\u2019ll strike it out.\r\n\r\nBill [taking this as a slight, and deeply wounded by it] Eah! you let my name alone. Ain\u2019t it good enough to be in your book?\r\n\r\nBarbara [considering] Well, you see, there\u2019s no use putting down your name unless I can do something for you, is there? What\u2019s your trade?\r\n\r\nBill [still smarting] That\u2019s no concern o yours.\r\n\r\nBarbara. Just so. [very businesslike] I\u2019ll put you down as [writing] the man who \u2014 struck \u2014 poor little Jenny Hill \u2014 in the mouth.\r\n\r\nBill [rising threateningly] See here. I\u2019ve ad enough o this.\r\n\r\nBarbara [quite sunny and fearless] What did you come to us for?\r\n\r\nBill. I come for my girl, see? I come to take her out o this and to break er jaws for her.\r\n\r\nBarbara [complacently] You see I was right about your trade. [Bill, on the point of retorting furiously, finds himself, to his great shame and terror, in danger of crying instead. He sits down again suddenly]. What\u2019s her name?\r\n\r\nBill [dogged] Er name\u2019s Mog Abbijam: thats wot her name is.\r\n\r\nBarbara. Oh, she\u2019s gone to Canning Town, to our barracks there.\r\n\r\nBill [fortified by his resentment of Mog\u2019s perfidy] is she? [Vindictively] Then I\u2019m goin to Kennintahn arter her. [He crosses to the gate; hesitates; finally comes back at Barbara]. Are you lyin to me to get shut o me?\r\n\r\nBarbara. I don\u2019t want to get shut of you. I want to keep you here and save your soul. You\u2019d better stay: you\u2019re going to have a bad time today, Bill.\r\n\r\nBill. Who\u2019s goin to give it to me? You, praps.\r\n\r\nBarbara. Someone you don\u2019t believe in. But you\u2019ll be glad afterwards.\r\n\r\nBill [slinking off] I\u2019ll go to Kennintahn to be out o the reach o your tongue. [Suddenly turning on her with intense malice] And if I don\u2019t find Mog there, I\u2019ll come back and do two years for you, selp me Gawd if I don\u2019t!\r\n\r\nBarbara [a shade kindlier, if possible] It\u2019s no use, Bill. She\u2019s got another bloke.\r\n\r\nBill. Wot!\r\n\r\nBarbara. One of her own converts. He fell in love with her when he saw her with her soul saved, and her face clean, and her hair washed.\r\n\r\nBill [surprised] Wottud she wash it for, the carroty slut? It\u2019s red.\r\n\r\nBarbara. It\u2019s quite lovely now, because she wears a new look in her eyes with it. It\u2019s a pity you\u2019re too late. The new bloke has put your nose out of joint, Bill.\r\n\r\nBill. I\u2019ll put his nose out o joint for him. Not that I care a curse for her, mind that. But I\u2019ll teach her to drop me as if I was dirt. And I\u2019ll teach him to meddle with my Judy. Wots iz bleedin name?\r\n\r\nBarbara. Sergeant Todger Fairmile.\r\n\r\nShirley [rising with grim joy] I\u2019ll go with him, miss. I want to see them two meet. I\u2019ll take him to the infirmary when it\u2019s over.\r\n\r\nBill [to Shirley, with undissembled misgiving] Is that im you was speakin on?\r\n\r\nShirley. That\u2019s him.\r\n\r\nBill. Im that wrastled in the music all?\r\n\r\nShirley. The competitions at the National Sportin Club was worth nigh a hundred a year to him. He\u2019s gev em up now for religion; so he\u2019s a bit fresh for want of the exercise he was accustomed to. He\u2019ll be glad to see you. Come along.\r\n\r\nBill. Wots is weight?\r\n\r\nShirley. Thirteen four[footnote]13 stone = 13 x 14 pounds\u00a0plus 4, or 186 pounds. One stone is equal to 14 pounds.[\/footnote]. [Bill\u2019s last hope expires].\r\n\r\nBarbara. Go and talk to him, Bill. He\u2019ll convert you.\r\n\r\nShirley. He\u2019ll convert your head into a mashed potato.\r\n\r\nBill [sullenly] I ain\u2019t afraid of him. I ain\u2019t afraid of ennybody. But he can lick me. She\u2019s done me. [He sits down moodily on the edge of the horse trough].\r\n\r\nShirley. You ain\u2019t goin. I thought not. [He resumes his seat].\r\n\r\nBarbara [calling] Jenny!\r\n\r\nJenny [appearing at the shelter door with a plaster on the corner of her mouth] Yes, Major.\r\n\r\nBarbara. Send Rummy Mitchens out to clear away here.\r\n\r\nJenny. I think she\u2019s afraid.\r\n\r\nBarbara [her resemblance to her mother flashing out for a moment] Nonsense! she must do as she\u2019s told.\r\n\r\nJenny [calling into the shelter] Rummy: the Major says you must come.\r\n\r\nJenny comes to Barbara, purposely keeping on the side next Bill, lest he should suppose that she shrank from him or bore malice.\r\n\r\nBarbara. Poor little Jenny! Are you tired? [Looking at the wounded cheek] Does it hurt?\r\n\r\nJenny. No: it\u2019s all right now. It was nothing.\r\n\r\nBarbara [critically] It was as hard as he could hit, I expect. Poor Bill! You don\u2019t feel angry with him, do you?\r\n\r\nJenny. Oh no, no, no: indeed I don\u2019t, Major, bless his poor heart! [Barbara kisses her; and she runs away merrily into the shelter. Bill writhes with an agonizing return of his new and alarming symptoms, but says nothing. Rummy Mitchens comes from the shelter].\r\n\r\nBarbara [going to meet Rummy] Now Rummy, bustle. Take in those mugs and plates to be washed; and throw the crumbs about for the birds.\r\n\r\nRummy takes the three plates and mugs; but Shirley takes back his mug from her, as there it still some milk left in it.\r\n\r\nRummy. There ain\u2019t any crumbs. This ain\u2019t a time to waste good bread on birds.\r\n\r\nPrice [appearing at the shelter door] Gentleman come to see the shelter, Major. Says he\u2019s your father.\r\n\r\nBarbara. All right. Coming. [Snobby goes back into the shelter, followed by Barbara].\r\n\r\nRummy [stealing across to Bill and addressing him in a subdued voice, but with intense conviction] I\u2019d av the lor[footnote]The law.[\/footnote]\u00a0of you, you flat eared pignosed potwalloper, if she\u2019d let me. You\u2019re no gentleman, to hit a lady in the face. [Bill, with greater things moving in him, takes no notice].\r\n\r\nShirley [following her] Here! in with you and don\u2019t get yourself into more trouble by talking.\r\n\r\nRummy [with hauteur] I ain\u2019t ad the pleasure o being hintroduced to you, as I can remember. [She goes into the shelter with the plates].\r\n\r\nBill [savagely] Don\u2019t you talk to me, d\u2019ye hear. You lea me alone, or I\u2019ll do you a mischief. I\u2019m not dirt under your feet, anyway.\r\n\r\nShirley [calmly] Don\u2019t you be afeerd. You ain\u2019t such prime company that you need expect to be sought after. [He is about to go into the shelter when Barbara comes out, with Undershaft on her right].\r\n\r\nBarbara. Oh there you are, Mr Shirley! [Between them] This is my father: I told you he was a Secularist, didn\u2019t I? Perhaps you\u2019ll be able to comfort one another.\r\n\r\nUndershaft [startled] A Secularist! Not the least in the world: on the contrary, a confirmed mystic.\r\n\r\nBarbara. Sorry, I\u2019m sure. By the way, papa, what is your religion \u2014 in case I have to introduce you again?\r\n\r\nUndershaft. My religion? Well, my dear, I am a Millionaire. That is my religion.\r\n\r\nBarbara. Then I\u2019m afraid you and Mr Shirley wont be able to comfort one another after all. You\u2019re not a Millionaire, are you, Peter?\r\n\r\nShirley. No; and proud of it.\r\n\r\nUndershaft [gravely] Poverty, my friend, is not a thing to be proud of.\r\n\r\nShirley [angrily] Who made your millions for you? Me and my like. What\u2019s kep us poor? Keepin you rich. I wouldn\u2019t have your conscience, not for all your income.\r\n\r\nUndershaft. I wouldn\u2019t have your income, not for all your conscience, Mr Shirley. [He goes to the penthouse and sits down on a form].\r\n\r\nBarbara [stopping Shirley adroitly as he is about to retort] You wouldn\u2019t think he was my father, would you, Peter? Will you go into the shelter and lend the lasses a hand for a while: we\u2019re worked off our feet.\r\n\r\nShirley [bitterly] Yes: I\u2019m in their debt for a meal, ain\u2019t I?\r\n\r\nBarbara. Oh, not because you\u2019re in their debt; but for love of them, Peter, for love of them. [He cannot understand, and is rather scandalized]. There! Don\u2019t stare at me. In with you; and give that conscience of yours a holiday [bustling him into the shelter].\r\n\r\nShirley [as he goes in] Ah! it\u2019s a pity you never was trained to use your reason, miss. You\u2019d have been a very taking[footnote]Convincing.[\/footnote]\u00a0lecturer on Secularism.\r\n\r\nBarbara turns to her father.\r\n\r\nUndershaft. Never mind me, my dear. Go about your work; and let me watch it for a while.\r\n\r\nBarbara. All right.\r\n\r\nUndershaft. For instance, what\u2019s the matter with that out-patient over there?\r\n\r\nBarbara [looking at Bill, whose attitude has never changed, and whose expression of brooding wrath has deepened] Oh, we shall cure him in no time. Just watch. [She goes over to Bill and waits. He glances up at her and casts his eyes down again, uneasy, but grimmer than ever]. It would be nice to just stamp on Mog Habbijam\u2019s face, wouldn\u2019t it, Bill?\r\n\r\nBill [starting up from the trough in consternation] It\u2019s a lie: I never said so. [She shakes her head]. Who told you wot was in my mind?\r\n\r\nBarbara. Only your new friend.\r\n\r\nBill. Wot new friend?\r\n\r\nBarbara. The devil, Bill. When he gets round people they get miserable, just like you.\r\n\r\nBill [with a heartbreaking attempt at devil-may-care cheerfulness] I ain\u2019t miserable. [He sits down again, and stretches his legs in an attempt to seem indifferent].\r\n\r\nBarbara. Well, if you\u2019re happy, why don\u2019t you look happy, as we do?\r\n\r\nBill [his legs curling back in spite of him] I\u2019m appy enough, I tell you. Why don\u2019t you lea me alown? Wot av I done to you? I ain\u2019t smashed your face, av I?\r\n\r\nBarbara [softly: wooing his soul] It\u2019s not me that\u2019s getting at you, Bill.\r\n\r\nBill. Who else is it?\r\n\r\nBarbara. Somebody that doesn\u2019t intend you to smash women\u2019s faces, I suppose. Somebody or something that wants to make a man of you.\r\n\r\nBill [blustering] Make a man o ME! Ain\u2019t I a man? eh? ain\u2019t I a man? Who sez I\u2019m not a man?\r\n\r\nBarbara. There\u2019s a man in you somewhere, I suppose. But why did he let you hit poor little Jenny Hill? That wasn\u2019t very manly of him, was it?\r\n\r\nBill [tormented] Av done with it, I tell you. Chock[footnote]Chuck, stop.[\/footnote]\u00a0it. I\u2019m sick of your Jenny Ill and er silly little face.\r\n\r\nBarbara. Then why do you keep thinking about it? Why does it keep coming up against you in your mind? You\u2019re not getting converted, are you?\r\n\r\nBill [with conviction] Not ME. Not likely. Not arf.\r\n\r\nBarbara. That\u2019s right, Bill. Hold out against it. Put out your strength. Don\u2019t let\u2019s get you cheap. Todger Fairmile said he wrestled for three nights against his Salvation harder than he ever wrestled with the Jap at the music hall. He gave in to the Jap when his arm was going to break. But he didn\u2019t give in to his salvation until his heart was going to break. Perhaps you\u2019ll escape that. You haven\u2019t any heart, have you?\r\n\r\nBill. Wot dye mean? Wy ain\u2019t I got a art the same as ennybody else?\r\n\r\nBarbara. A man with a heart wouldn\u2019t have bashed poor little Jenny\u2019s face, would he?\r\n\r\nBill [almost crying] Ow, will you lea me alown? Av I ever offered to meddle with you, that you come noggin and provowkin me lawk this? [He writhes convulsively from his eyes to his toes].\r\n\r\nBarbara [with a steady soothing hand on his arm and a gentle voice that never lets him go] It\u2019s your soul that\u2019s hurting you, Bill, and not me. We\u2019ve been through it all ourselves. Come with us, Bill. [He looks wildly round]. To brave manhood on earth and eternal glory in heaven. [He is on the point of breaking down]. Come. [A drum is heard in the shelter; and Bill, with a gasp, escapes from the spell as Barbara turns quickly. Adolphus enters from the shelter with a big drum]. Oh! there you are, Dolly. Let me introduce a new friend of mine, Mr Bill Walker. This is my bloke, Bill: Mr Cusins. [Cusins salutes with his drumstick].\r\n\r\nBill. Goin to marry im?\r\n\r\nBarbara. Yes.\r\n\r\nBill [fervently] Gawd elp im! Gawd elp im!\r\n\r\nBarbara. Why? Do you think he won\u2019t be happy with me?\r\n\r\nBill. I\u2019ve only ad to stand it for a mornin: e\u2019ll av to stand it for a lifetime.\r\n\r\nCusins. That is a frightful reflection, Mr Walker. But I can\u2019t tear myself away from her.\r\n\r\nBill. Well, I can. [To Barbara] Eah! do you know where I\u2019m goin to, and wot I\u2019m goin to do?\r\n\r\nBarbara. Yes: you\u2019re going to heaven; and you\u2019re coming back here before the week\u2019s out to tell me so.\r\n\r\nBill. You lie. I\u2019m goin to Kennintahn, to spit in Todger Fairmile\u2019s eye. I bashed Jenny Ill\u2019s face; and now I\u2019ll get me own face bashed and come back and show it to er. E\u2019ll it me ardern I it er. That\u2019ll make us square. [To Adolphus] Is that fair or is it not? You\u2019re a genlmn: you oughter know.\r\n\r\nBarbara. Two black eyes wont make one white one, Bill.\r\n\r\nBill. I didn\u2019t ast you. Cawn\u2019t you never keep your mahth shut? I ast the genlmn.\r\n\r\nCusins [reflectively] Yes: I think you\u2019re right, Mr Walker. Yes: I should do it. It\u2019s curious: it\u2019s exactly what an ancient Greek would have done.\r\n\r\nBarbara. But what good will it do?\r\n\r\nCusins. Well, it will give Mr Fairmile some exercise; and it will satisfy Mr Walker\u2019s soul.\r\n\r\nBill. Rot! there ain\u2019t no sach a thing as a soul. Ah kin you tell wether I\u2019ve a soul or not? You never seen it.\r\n\r\nBarbara. I\u2019ve seen it hurting you when you went against it.\r\n\r\nBill [with compressed aggravation] If you was my girl and took the word out o me mahth lawk thet, I\u2019d give you suthink you\u2019d feel urtin, so I would. [To Adolphus] You take my tip, mate. Stop er jawr; or you\u2019ll die afore your time. [With intense expression] Wore aht: thets wot you\u2019ll be: wore aht. [He goes away through the gate].\r\n\r\nCusins [looking after him] I wonder!\r\n\r\nBarbara. Dolly! [indignant, in her mother\u2019s manner].\r\n\r\nCusins. Yes, my dear, it\u2019s very wearing to be in love with you. If it lasts, I quite think I shall die young.\r\n\r\nBarbara. Should you mind?\r\n\r\nCusins. Not at all. [He is suddenly softened, and kisses her over the drum, evidently not for the first time, as people cannot kiss over a big drum without practice. Undershaft coughs].\r\n\r\nBarbara. It\u2019s all right, papa, we\u2019ve not forgotten you. Dolly: explain the place to papa: I haven\u2019t time. [She goes busily into the shelter].\r\n\r\nUndershaft and Adolphus now have the yard to themselves. Undershaft, seated on a form, and still keenly attentive, looks hard at Adolphus. Adolphus looks hard at him.\r\n\r\nUndershaft. I fancy you guess something of what is in my mind, Mr Cusins. [Cusins flourishes his drumsticks as if in the art of beating a lively rataplan, but makes no sound]. Exactly so. But suppose Barbara finds you out!\r\n\r\nCusins. You know, I do not admit that I am imposing on Barbara. I am quite genuinely interested in the views of the Salvation Army. The fact is, I am a sort of collector of religions; and the curious thing is that I find I can believe them all. By the way, have you any religion?\r\n\r\nUndershaft. Yes.\r\n\r\nCusins. Anything out of the common?\r\n\r\nUndershaft. Only that there are two things necessary to Salvation.\r\n\r\nCusins [disappointed, but polite] Ah, the Church Catechism. Charles Lomax also belongs to the Established Church.\r\n\r\nUndershaft. The two things are\u00a0\u2014\r\n\r\nCusins. Baptism and\u00a0\u2014\r\n\r\nUndershaft. No. Money and gunpowder.\r\n\r\nCusins [surprised, but interested] That is the general opinion of our governing classes. The novelty is in hearing any man confess it.\r\n\r\nUndershaft. Just so.\r\n\r\nCusins. Excuse me: is there any place in your religion for honor, justice, truth, love, mercy and so forth?\r\n\r\nUndershaft. Yes: they are the graces and luxuries of a rich, strong, and safe life.\r\n\r\nCusins. Suppose one is forced to choose between them and money or gunpowder?\r\n\r\nUndershaft. Choose money and gunpowder; for without enough of both you cannot afford the others.\r\n\r\nCusins. That is your religion?\r\n\r\nUndershaft. Yes.\r\n\r\nThe cadence of this reply makes a full close in the conversation. Cusins twists his face dubiously and contemplates Undershaft. Undershaft contemplates him.\r\n\r\nCusins. Barbara won\u2019t stand that. You will have to choose between your religion and Barbara.\r\n\r\nUndershaft. So will you, my friend. She will find out that that drum of yours is hollow.\r\n\r\nCusins. Father Undershaft: you are mistaken: I am a sincere Salvationist. You do not understand the Salvation Army. It is the army of joy, of love, of courage: it has banished the fear and remorse and despair of the old hellridden evangelical sects: it marches to fight the devil with trumpet and drum, with music and dancing, with banner and palm, as becomes a sally from heaven by its happy garrison. It picks the waster out of the public house and makes a man of him: it finds a worm wriggling in a back kitchen, and lo! a woman! Men and women of rank too, sons and daughters of the Highest. It takes the poor professor of Greek, the most artificial and self-suppressed of human creatures, from his meal of roots, and lets loose the rhapsodist in him; reveals the true worship of Dionysos[footnote]Greek god of wine, religious ecstasy, and theater.[\/footnote]\u00a0to him; sends him down the public street drumming dithyrambs[footnote]Wild, impetuous lyric in praise of Dionysos (Bacchus).[\/footnote]\u00a0[he plays a thundering flourish on the drum].\r\n\r\nUndershaft. You will alarm the shelter.\r\n\r\nCusins. Oh, they are accustomed to these sudden ecstasies of piety. However, if the drum worries you \u2014 [he pockets the drumsticks; unhooks the drum; and stands it on the ground opposite the gateway].\r\n\r\nUndershaft. Thank you.\r\n\r\nCusins. You remember what Euripides says about your money and gunpowder?\r\n\r\nUndershaft. No.\r\n\r\nCusins [declaiming]\r\n\r\nOne and another\r\n\r\nIn money and guns may outpass his brother;\r\n\r\nAnd men in their millions float and flow\r\n\r\nAnd seethe with a million hopes as leaven;\r\n\r\nAnd they win their will; or they miss their will;\r\n\r\nAnd their hopes are dead or are pined for still:\r\n\r\nBut whoe\u2019er can know\r\n\r\nAs the long days go\r\n\r\nThat to live is happy, has found <em>his<\/em> heaven.\r\n\r\nMy translation[footnote]From Euripides\u2019 play <em>The Bacchae<\/em> (405 BC). Shaw uses here the 1904 translation of his friend, the Australian-born classicist Gilbert Murray (1866-1957), upon whom he based the character Adolphus Cusins.[\/footnote]: what do you think of it?\r\n\r\nUndershaft. I think, my friend, that if you wish to know, as the long days go, that to live is happy, you must first acquire money enough for a decent life, and power enough to be your own master.\r\n\r\nCusins. You are damnably discouraging. [He resumes his declamation].\r\n\r\nIs it so hard a thing to see\r\n\r\nThat the spirit of God \u2014 whate\u2019er it be \u2014\r\n\r\nThe Law that abides and changes not, ages long,\r\n\r\nThe Eternal and Nature-born: these things be strong.\r\n\r\nWhat else is Wisdom? What of Man\u2019s endeavor,\r\n\r\nOr God\u2019s high grace so lovely and so great?\r\n\r\nTo stand from fear set free? to breathe and wait?\r\n\r\nTo hold a hand uplifted over Fate?\r\n\r\nAnd shall not Barbara be loved for ever?\r\n\r\nUndershaft. Euripides mentions Barbara, does he?\r\n\r\nCusins. It is a fair translation. The word means Loveliness.\r\n\r\nUndershaft. May I ask \u2014 as Barbara\u2019s father \u2014 how much a year she is to be loved for ever on?\r\n\r\nCusins. As Barbara\u2019s father, that is more your affair than mine. I can feed her by teaching Greek: that is about all.\r\n\r\nUndershaft. Do you consider it a good match for her?\r\n\r\nCusins [with polite obstinacy] Mr Undershaft: I am in many ways a weak, timid, ineffectual person; and my health is far from satisfactory. But whenever I feel that I must have anything, I get it, sooner or later. I feel that way about Barbara. I don\u2019t like marriage: I feel intensely afraid of it; and I don\u2019t know what I shall do with Barbara or what she will do with me. But I feel that I and nobody else must marry her. Please regard that as settled.\u2014 Not that I wish to be arbitrary; but why should I waste your time in discussing what is inevitable?\r\n\r\nUndershaft. You mean that you will stick at nothing not even the conversion of the Salvation Army to the worship of Dionysos.\r\n\r\nCusins. The business of the Salvation Army is to save, not to wrangle about the name of the pathfinder. Dionysos or another: what does it matter?\r\n\r\nUndershaft [rising and approaching him] Professor Cusins you are a young man after my own heart.\r\n\r\nCusins. Mr Undershaft: you are, as far as I am able to gather, a most infernal old rascal; but you appeal very strongly to my sense of ironic humor.\r\n\r\nUndershaft mutely offers his hand. They shake.\r\n\r\nUndershaft [suddenly concentrating himself] And now to business.\r\n\r\nCusins. Pardon me. We were discussing religion. Why go back to such an uninteresting and unimportant subject as business?\r\n\r\nUndershaft. Religion is our business at present, because it is through religion alone that we can win Barbara.\r\n\r\nCusins. Have you, too, fallen in love with Barbara?\r\n\r\nUndershaft. Yes, with a father\u2019s love.\r\n\r\nCusins. A father\u2019s love for a grown-up daughter is the most dangerous of all infatuations. I apologize for mentioning my own pale, coy, mistrustful fancy in the same breath with it.\r\n\r\nUndershaft. Keep to the point. We have to win her; and we are neither of us Methodists[footnote]Gen. William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, was originally a Methodist. Methodism was a reformist sect founded by John Wesley (1703-1791) from within the Church of England.[\/footnote].\r\n\r\nCusins. That doesn\u2019t matter. The power Barbara wields here \u2014 the power that wields Barbara herself \u2014 is not Calvinism, not Presbyterianism, not Methodism\u00a0\u2014\r\n\r\nUndershaft. Not Greek Paganism either, eh?\r\n\r\nCusins. I admit that. Barbara is quite original in her religion.\r\n\r\nUndershaft [triumphantly] Aha! Barbara Undershaft would be. Her inspiration comes from within herself.\r\n\r\nCusins. How do you suppose it got there?\r\n\r\nUndershaft [in towering excitement] It is the Undershaft inheritance. I shall hand on my torch to my daughter. She shall make my converts and preach my gospel.\r\n\r\nCusins. What! Money and gunpowder!\r\n\r\nUndershaft. Yes, money and gunpowder; freedom and power; command of life and command of death.\r\n\r\nCusins [urbanely: trying to bring him down to earth] This is extremely interesting, Mr Undershaft. Of course you know that you are mad.\r\n\r\nUndershaft [with redoubled force] And you?\r\n\r\nCusins. Oh, mad as a hatter. You are welcome to my secret since I have discovered yours. But I am astonished. Can a madman make cannons?\r\n\r\nUndershaft. Would anyone else than a madman make them? And now [with surging energy] question for question. Can a sane man translate Euripides?\r\n\r\nCusins. No.\r\n\r\nUndershaft [reining him by the shoulder] Can a sane woman make a man of a waster or a woman of a worm?\r\n\r\nCusins [reeling before the storm] Father Colossus \u2014 Mammoth Millionaire\u00a0\u2014\r\n\r\nUndershaft [pressing him] Are there two mad people or three in this Salvation shelter to-day?\r\n\r\nCusins. You mean Barbara is as mad as we are!\r\n\r\nUndershaft [pushing him lightly off and resuming his equanimity suddenly and completely] Pooh, Professor! let us call things by their proper names. I am a millionaire; you are a poet; Barbara is a savior of souls. What have we three to do with the common mob of slaves and idolaters? [He sits down again with a shrug of contempt for the mob].\r\n\r\nCusins. Take care! Barbara is in love with the common people. So am I. Have you never felt the romance of that love?\r\n\r\nUndershaft [cold and sardonic] Have you ever been in love with Poverty, like St Francis? Have you ever been in love with Dirt, like St Simeon? Have you ever been in love with disease and suffering, like our nurses and philanthropists? Such passions are not virtues, but the most unnatural of all the vices. This love of the common people may please an earl\u2019s granddaughter and a university professor; but I have been a common man and a poor man; and it has no romance for me. Leave it to the poor to pretend that poverty is a blessing: leave it to the coward to make a religion of his cowardice by preaching humility: we know better than that. We three must stand together above the common people: how else can we help their children to climb up beside us? Barbara must belong to us, not to the Salvation Army.\r\n\r\nCusins. Well, I can only say that if you think you will get her away from the Salvation Army by talking to her as you have been talking to me, you don\u2019t know Barbara.\r\n\r\nUndershaft. My friend: I never ask for what I can buy.\r\n\r\nCusins [in a white fury] Do I understand you to imply that you can buy Barbara?\r\n\r\nUndershaft. No; but I can buy the Salvation Army.\r\n\r\nCusins. Quite impossible.\r\n\r\nUndershaft. You shall see. All religious organizations exist by selling themselves to the rich.\r\n\r\nCusins. Not the Army. That is the Church of the poor.\r\n\r\nUndershaft. All the more reason for buying it.\r\n\r\nCusins. I don\u2019t think you quite know what the Army does for the poor.\r\n\r\nUndershaft. Oh yes I do. It draws their teeth: that is enough for me \u2014 as a man of business\u00a0\u2014\r\n\r\nCusins. Nonsense! It makes them sober\u00a0\u2014\r\n\r\nUndershaft. I prefer sober workmen. The profits are larger.\r\n\r\nCusins. \u2014 honest\u00a0\u2014\r\n\r\nUndershaft. Honest workmen are the most economical.\r\n\r\nCusins. \u2014 attached to their homes\u00a0\u2014\r\n\r\nUndershaft. So much the better: they will put up with anything sooner than change their shop.\r\n\r\nCusins. \u2014 happy\u00a0\u2014\r\n\r\nUndershaft. An invaluable safeguard against revolution.\r\n\r\nCusins. \u2014 unselfish\u00a0\u2014\r\n\r\nUndershaft. Indifferent to their own interests, which suits me exactly.\r\n\r\nCusins. \u2014 with their thoughts on heavenly things\u00a0\u2014\r\n\r\nUndershaft [rising] And not on Trade Unionism nor Socialism. Excellent.\r\n\r\nCusins [revolted] You really are an infernal old rascal.\r\n\r\nUndershaft [indicating Peter Shirley, who has just came from the shelter and strolled dejectedly down the yard between them] And this is an honest man!\r\n\r\nShirley. Yes; and what av I got by it? [he passes on bitterly and sits on the form, in the corner of the penthouse].\r\n\r\nSnobby Price, beaming sanctimoniously, and Jenny Hill, with a tambourine full of coppers, come from the shelter and go to the drum, on which Jenny begins to count the money.\r\n\r\nUndershaft [replying to Shirley] Oh, your employers must have got a good deal by it from first to last. [He sits on the table, with one foot on the side form. Cusins, overwhelmed, sits down on the same form nearer the shelter. Barbara comes from the shelter to the middle of the yard. She is excited and a little overwrought].\r\n\r\nBarbara. We\u2019ve just had a splendid experience meeting at the other gate in Cripps\u2019s lane. I\u2019ve hardly ever seen them so much moved as they were by your confession, Mr Price.\r\n\r\nPrice. I could almost be glad of my past wickedness if I could believe that it would elp to keep hathers stright.\r\n\r\nBarbara. So it will, Snobby. How much, Jenny?\r\n\r\nJenny. Four and tenpence, Major.\r\n\r\nBarbara. Oh Snobby, if you had given your poor mother just one more kick, we should have got the whole five shillings!\r\n\r\nPrice. If she heard you say that, miss, she\u2019d be sorry I didn\u2019t. But I\u2019m glad. Oh what a joy it will be to her when she hears I\u2019m saved!\r\n\r\nUndershaft. Shall I contribute the odd twopence, Barbara? The millionaire\u2019s mite, eh? [He takes a couple of pennies from his pocket.]\r\n\r\nBarbara. How did you make that twopence?\r\n\r\nUndershaft. As usual. By selling cannons, torpedoes, submarines, and my new patent Grand Duke hand grenade.\r\n\r\nBarbara. Put it back in your pocket. You can\u2019t buy your Salvation here for twopence: you must work it out.\r\n\r\nUndershaft. Is twopence not enough? I can afford a little more, if you press me.\r\n\r\nBarbara. Two million millions would not be enough. There is bad blood on your hands; and nothing but good blood can cleanse them. Money is no use. Take it away. [She turns to Cusins]. Dolly: you must write another letter for me to the papers. [He makes a wry face]. Yes: I know you don\u2019t like it; but it must be done. The starvation this winter is beating us: everybody is unemployed. The General says we must close this shelter if we cant get more money. I force the collections at the meetings until I am ashamed, don\u2019t I, Snobby?\r\n\r\nPrice. It\u2019s a fair treat to see you work it, miss. The way you got them up from three-and-six to four-and-ten with that hymn, penny by penny and verse by verse, was a caution. Not a Cheap Jack on Mile End Waste[footnote]A cheap-Jack is a travelling vendor of small wares, willing to take less than the price he first names. Mile End Waste is the market area of Mile End Road, London, the East End equivalent of Hyde Park Corner and place where William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army, gave his first open-air sermon.[\/footnote]\u00a0could touch you at it.\r\n\r\nBarbara. Yes; but I wish we could do without it. I am getting at last to think more of the collection than of the people\u2019s souls. And what are those hatfuls of pence and halfpence? We want thousands! tens of thousands! hundreds of thousands! I want to convert people, not to be always begging for the Army in a way I\u2019d die sooner than beg for myself.\r\n\r\nUndershaft [in profound irony] Genuine unselfishness is capable of anything, my dear.\r\n\r\nBarbara [unsuspectingly, as she turns away to take the money from the drum and put it in a cash bag she carries] Yes, isn\u2019t it? [Undershaft looks sardonically at Cusins].\r\n\r\nCusins [aside to Undershaft] Mephistopheles[footnote]The devil who bought Faust\u2019s soul. Machiavelli (1469-1527), Italian statesman and author whose name came to suggest politicians who use deceit to accomplish their ends.[\/footnote]! Machiavelli!\r\n\r\nBarbara [tears coming into her eyes as she ties the bag and pockets it] How are we to feed them? I can\u2019t talk religion to a man with bodily hunger in his eyes. [Almost breaking down] It\u2019s frightful.\r\n\r\nJenny [running to her] Major, dear\u00a0\u2014\r\n\r\nBarbara [rebounding] No: don\u2019t comfort me. It will be all right. We shall get the money.\r\n\r\nUndershaft. How?\r\n\r\nJenny. By praying for it, of course. Mrs Baines says she prayed for it last night; and she has never prayed for it in vain: never once. [She goes to the gate and looks out into the street].\r\n\r\nBarbara [who has dried her eyes and regained her composure] By the way, dad, Mrs Baines has come to march with us to our big meeting this afternoon; and she is very anxious to meet you, for some reason or other. Perhaps she\u2019ll convert you.\r\n\r\nUndershaft. I shall be delighted, my dear.\r\n\r\nJenny [at the gate: excitedly] Major! Major! Here\u2019s that man back again.\r\n\r\nBarbara. What man?\r\n\r\nJenny. The man that hit me. Oh, I hope he\u2019s coming back to join us.\r\n\r\nBill Walker, with frost on his jacket, comes through the gate, his hands deep in his pockets and his chin sunk between his shoulders, like a cleaned-out gambler. He halts between Barbara and the drum.\r\n\r\nBarbara. Hullo, Bill! Back already!\r\n\r\nBill [nagging at her] Bin talkin ever sense, av you?\r\n\r\nBarbara. Pretty nearly. Well, has Todger paid you out for poor Jenny\u2019s jaw?\r\n\r\nBill. NO he ain\u2019t.\r\n\r\nBarbara. I thought your jacket looked a bit snowy.\r\n\r\nBill. So it is snowy. You want to know where the snow come from, don\u2019t you?\r\n\r\nBarbara. Yes.\r\n\r\nBill. Well, it come from off the ground in Parkinses Corner in Kennintahn. It got rubbed off be my shoulders see?\r\n\r\nBarbara. Pity you didn\u2019t rub some off with your knees, Bill! That would have done you a lot of good.\r\n\r\nBill [with your mirthless humor] I was saving another man\u2019s knees at the time. E was kneelin on my ed, so e was.\r\n\r\nJenny. Who was kneeling on your head?\r\n\r\nBill. Todger was. E was prayin for me: prayin comfortable with me as a carpet. So was Mog. So was the ole bloomin meetin. Mog she sez \u201cO Lord break is stubborn spirit; but don\u2019t urt is dear art.\u201d That was wot she said. \u201cDon\u2019t urt is dear art\u201d! An er bloke \u2014 thirteen stun four!\u2014 kneelin wiv all is weight on me. Funny, ain\u2019t it?\r\n\r\nJenny. Oh no. We\u2019re so sorry, Mr Walker.\r\n\r\nBarbara [enjoying it frankly] Nonsense! of course it\u2019s funny. Served you right, Bill! You must have done something to him first.\r\n\r\nBill [doggedly] I did wot I said I\u2019d do. I spit in is eye. E looks up at the sky and sez, \u201cO that I should be fahnd worthy to be spit upon for the gospel\u2019s sake!\u201d a sez; an Mog sez \u201cGlory Allelloolier!\u201d; an then a called me Brother, an dahned me as if I was a kid and a was me mother washin me a Setterda nawt. I adn\u2019t just no show wiv im at all. Arf the street prayed; an the tother arf larfed fit to split theirselves. [To Barbara] There! are you settisfawd nah?\r\n\r\nBarbara [her eyes dancing] Wish I\u2019d been there, Bill.\r\n\r\nBill. Yes: you\u2019d a got in a hextra bit o talk on me, wouldn\u2019t you?\r\n\r\nJenny. I\u2019m so sorry, Mr. Walker.\r\n\r\nBill [fiercely] Don\u2019t you go bein sorry for me: you\u2019ve no call. Listen ere. I broke your jawr.\r\n\r\nJenny. No, it didn\u2019t hurt me: indeed it didn\u2019t, except for a moment. It was only that I was frightened.\r\n\r\nBill. I don\u2019t want to be forgive be you, or be ennybody. Wot I did I\u2019ll pay for. I tried to get me own jawr broke to settisfaw you\u00a0\u2014\r\n\r\nJenny [distressed] Oh no\u00a0\u2014\r\n\r\nBill [impatiently] Tell y\u2019I did: cawn\u2019t you listen to wot\u2019s bein told you? All I got be it was bein made a sight of in the public street for me pains. Well, if I cawn\u2019t settisfaw you one way, I can another. Listen ere! I ad two quid saved agen the frost; an I\u2019ve a pahnd of it left. A mate n mine last week ad words with the Judy e\u2019s goin to marry. E give er wot-for; an e\u2019s bin fined fifteen bob. E ad a right to it er because they was goin to be marrid; but I adn\u2019t no right to it you; so put anather fawv bob on an call it a pahnd\u2019s worth. [He produces a sovereign]. Ere\u2019s the money. Take it; and let\u2019s av no more o your forgivin an prayin and your Major jawrin me. Let wot I done be done and paid for; and let there be a end of it.\r\n\r\nJenny. Oh, I couldn\u2019t take it, Mr. Walker. But if you would give a shilling or two to poor Rummy Mitchens! you really did hurt her; and she\u2019s old.\r\n\r\nBill [contemptuously] Not likely. I\u2019d give her anather as soon as look at er. Let her av the lawr o me as she threatened! She ain\u2019t forgiven me: not mach. Wot I done to er is not on me mawnd \u2014 wot she [indicating Barbara] might call on me conscience \u2014 no more than stickin a pig. It\u2019s this Christian game o yours that I won\u2019t av played agen me: this bloomin forgivin an noggin an jawrin that makes a man that sore that iz lawf\u2019s a burdn to im. I won\u2019t av it, I tell you; so take your money and stop throwin your silly bashed face hup agen me.\r\n\r\nJenny. Major: may I take a little of it for the Army?\r\n\r\nBarbara. No: the Army is not to be bought. We want your soul, Bill; and we\u2019ll take nothing less.\r\n\r\nBill [bitterly] I know. It ain\u2019t enough. Me an me few shillins is not good enough for you. You\u2019re a earl\u2019s grendorter, you are. Nothin less than a underd pahnd for you.\r\n\r\nUndershaft. Come, Barbara! you could do a great deal of good with a hundred pounds. If you will set this gentleman\u2019s mind at ease by taking his pound, I will give the other ninety-nine [Bill, astounded by such opulence, instinctively touches his cap].\r\n\r\nBarbara. Oh, you\u2019re too extravagant, papa. Bill offers twenty pieces of silver[footnote]Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver (Matthew 26:15).[\/footnote]. All you need offer is the other ten. That will make the standard price to buy anybody who\u2019s for sale. I\u2019m not; and the Army\u2019s not. [To Bill] You\u2019ll never have another quiet moment, Bill, until you come round to us. You can\u2019t stand out against your salvation.\r\n\r\nBill [sullenly] I cawn\u2019t stend aht agen music all wrastlers and artful tongued women. I\u2019ve offered to pay. I can do no more. Take it or leave it. There it is. [He throws the sovereign on the drum, and sits down on the horse-trough. The coin fascinates Snobby Price, who takes an early opportunity of dropping his cap on it].\r\n\r\nMrs Baines comes from the shelter. She is dressed as a Salvation Army Commissioner. She is an earnest looking woman of about 40, with a caressing, urgent voice, and an appealing manner.\r\n\r\nBarbara. This is my father, Mrs Baines. [Undershaft comes from the table, taking his hat off with marked civility]. Try what you can do with him. He won\u2019t listen to me, because he remembers what a fool I was when I was a baby.\r\n\r\n[She leaves them together and chats with Jenny].\r\n\r\nMrs Baines. Have you been shown over the shelter, Mr Undershaft? You know the work we\u2019re doing, of course.\r\n\r\nUndershaft [very civilly] The whole nation knows it, Mrs Baines.\r\n\r\nMrs Baines. No, Sir: the whole nation does not know it, or we should not be crippled as we are for want of money to carry our work through the length and breadth of the land. Let me tell you that there would have been rioting this winter in London but for us.\r\n\r\nUndershaft. You really think so?\r\n\r\nMrs Baines. I know it. I remember 1886[footnote]Trafalgar Square Demonstration and Riot, February 8, 1886. After meetings of two leftist organizations broke up in Trafalgar Square, a crowd of 5,000 people rushed into Pall Mall and St. James, smashing windows of the exclusive men\u2019s clubs nearby.[\/footnote], when you rich gentlemen hardened your hearts against the cry of the poor. They broke the windows of your clubs in Pall Mall.\r\n\r\nUndershaft [gleaming with approval of their method] And the Mansion House Fund[footnote]Poor-relief fund originated by the Lord Mayor of London. Mansion House is the Lord Mayor\u2019s official residence.[\/footnote]\u00a0went up next day from thirty thousand pounds to seventy-nine thousand! I remember quite well.\r\n\r\nMrs Baines. Well, won\u2019t you help me to get at the people? They won\u2019t break windows then. Come here, Price. Let me show you to this gentleman [Price comes to be inspected]. Do you remember the window breaking?\r\n\r\nPrice. My ole father thought it was the revolution, ma\u2019am.\r\n\r\nMrs Baines. Would you break windows now?\r\n\r\nPrice. Oh no ma\u2019m. The windows of eaven av bin opened to me. I know now that the rich man is a sinner like myself.\r\n\r\nRummy [appearing above at the loft door] Snobby Price!\r\n\r\nSnobby. Wot is it?\r\n\r\nRummy. Your mother\u2019s askin for you at the other gate in Crippses Lane. She\u2019s heard about your confession [Price turns pale].\r\n\r\nMrs Baines. Go, Mr. Price; and pray with her.\r\n\r\nJenny. You can go through the shelter, Snobby.\r\n\r\nPrice [to Mrs Baines] I couldn\u2019t face her now; ma\u2019am, with all the weight of my sins fresh on me. Tell her she\u2019ll find her son at ome, waitin for her in prayer. [He skulks off through the gate, incidentally stealing the sovereign on his way out by picking up his cap from the drum].\r\n\r\nMrs Baines [with swimming eyes] You see how we take the anger and the bitterness against you out of their hearts, Mr Undershaft.\r\n\r\nUndershaft. It is certainly most convenient and gratifying to all large employers of labor, Mrs Baines.\r\n\r\nMrs Baines. Barbara: Jenny: I have good news: most wonderful news. [Jenny runs to her]. My prayers have been answered. I told you they would, Jenny, didn\u2019t I?\r\n\r\nJenny. Yes, yes.\r\n\r\nBarbara [moving nearer to the drum] Have we got money enough to keep the shelter open?\r\n\r\nMrs Baines. I hope we shall have enough to keep all the shelters open. Lord Saxmundham[footnote]An invented title.[\/footnote]\u00a0has promised us five thousand pounds\u00a0\u2014\r\n\r\nBarbara. Hooray!\r\n\r\nJenny. Glory!\r\n\r\nMrs Baines. \u2014 if\u00a0\u2014\r\n\r\nBarbara. \u201cIf!\u201d If what?\r\n\r\nMrs Baines. If five other gentlemen will give a thousand each to make it up to ten thousand.\r\n\r\nBarbara. Who is Lord Saxmundham? I never heard of him.\r\n\r\nUndershaft [who has pricked up his ears at the peer\u2019s name, and is now watching Barbara curiously] A new creation, my dear. You have heard of Sir Horace Bodger?\r\n\r\nBarbara. Bodger! Do you mean the distiller? Bodger\u2019s whisky!\r\n\r\nUndershaft. That is the man. He is one of the greatest of our public benefactors. He restored the cathedral at Hakington. They made him a baronet for that. He gave half a million to the funds of his party: they made him a baron for that.\r\n\r\nShirley. What will they give him for the five thousand?\r\n\r\nUndershaft. There is nothing left to give him. So the five thousand, I should think, is to save his soul.\r\n\r\nMrs Baines. Heaven grant it may! Oh Mr. Undershaft, you have some very rich friends. Can\u2019t you help us towards the other five thousand? We are going to hold a great meeting this afternoon at the Assembly Hall in the Mile End Road. If I could only announce that one gentleman had come forward to support Lord Saxmundham, others would follow. Don\u2019t you know somebody? Couldn\u2019t you? Wouldn\u2019t you? [her eyes fill with tears] oh, think of those poor people, Mr Undershaft: think of how much it means to them, and how little to a great man like you.\r\n\r\nUndershaft [sardonically gallant] Mrs Baines: you are irresistible. I can\u2019t disappoint you; and I can\u2019t deny myself the satisfaction of making Bodger pay up. You shall have your five thousand pounds.\r\n\r\nMrs Baines. Thank God!\r\n\r\nUndershaft. You don\u2019t thank me?\r\n\r\nMrs Baines. Oh sir, don\u2019t try to be cynical: don\u2019t be ashamed of being a good man. The Lord will bless you abundantly; and our prayers will be like a strong fortification round you all the days of your life. [With a touch of caution] You will let me have the cheque to show at the meeting, won\u2019t you? Jenny: go in and fetch a pen and ink. [Jenny runs to the shelter door].\r\n\r\nUndershaft. Do not disturb Miss Hill: I have a fountain pen. [Jenny halts. He sits at the table and writes the cheque. Cusins rises to make more room for him. They all watch him silently].\r\n\r\nBill [cynically, aside to Barbara, his voice and accent horribly debased] Wot prawce Selvytion nah?\r\n\r\nBarbara. Stop. [Undershaft stops writing: they all turn to her in surprise]. Mrs Baines: are you really going to take this money?\r\n\r\nMrs Baines [astonished] Why not, dear?\r\n\r\nBarbara. Why not! Do you know what my father is? Have you forgotten that Lord Saxmundham is Bodger the whisky man? Do you remember how we implored the County Council to stop him from writing Bodger\u2019s Whisky in letters of fire against the sky; so that the poor drinkruined creatures on the embankment could not wake up from their snatches of sleep without being reminded of their deadly thirst by that wicked sky sign? Do you know that the worst thing I have had to fight here is not the devil, but Bodger, Bodger, Bodger, with his whisky, his distilleries, and his tied houses[footnote]A public house tied by agreement to obtain its supplies from a particular firm.[\/footnote]? Are you going to make our shelter another tied house for him, and ask me to keep it?\r\n\r\nBill. Rotten drunken whisky it is too.\r\n\r\nMrs Baines. Dear Barbara: Lord Saxmundham has a soul to be saved like any of us. If heaven has found the way to make a good use of his money, are we to set ourselves up against the answer to our prayers?\r\n\r\nBarbara. I know he has a soul to be saved. Let him come down here; and I\u2019ll do my best to help him to his salvation. But he wants to send his cheque down to buy us, and go on being as wicked as ever.\r\n\r\nUndershaft [with a reasonableness which Cusins alone perceives to be ironical] My dear Barbara: alcohol is a very necessary article. It heals the sick\u00a0\u2014\r\n\r\nBarbara. It does nothing of the sort.\r\n\r\nUndershaft. Well, it assists the doctor: that is perhaps a less questionable way of putting it. It makes life bearable to millions of people who could not endure their existence if they were quite sober. It enables Parliament to do things at eleven at night that no sane person would do at eleven in the morning. Is it Bodger\u2019s fault that this inestimable gift is deplorably abused by less than one per cent of the poor? [He turns again to the table; signs the cheque; and crosses it].\r\n\r\nMrs Baines. Barbara: will there be less drinking or more if all those poor souls we are saving come to-morrow and find the doors of our shelters shut in their faces? Lord Saxmundham gives us the money to stop drinking \u2014 to take his own business from him.\r\n\r\nCusins [impishly] Pure self-sacrifice on Bodger\u2019s part, clearly! Bless dear Bodger! [Barbara almost breaks down as Adolphus, too, fails her].\r\n\r\nUndershaft [tearing out the cheque and pocketing the book as he rises and goes past Cusins to Mrs Baines] I also, Mrs Baines, may claim a little disinterestedness. Think of my business! think of the widows and orphans! the men and lads torn to pieces with shrapnel and poisoned with lyddite[footnote]An explosive made from picric acid.[\/footnote]\u00a0[Mrs Baines shrinks; but he goes on remorselessly]! the oceans of blood, not one drop of which is shed in a really just cause! the ravaged crops! the peaceful peasants forced, women and men, to till their fields under the fire of opposing armies on pain of starvation! the bad blood of the fierce little cowards at home who egg on others to fight for the gratification of their national vanity! All this makes money for me: I am never richer, never busier than when the papers are full of it. Well, it is your work to preach peace on earth and goodwill to men. [Mrs Baines\u2019s face lights up again]. Every convert you make is a vote against war. [Her lips move in prayer]. Yet I give you this money to help you to hasten my own commercial ruin. [He gives her the cheque].\r\n\r\nCusins [mounting the form in an ecstasy of mischief] The millennium will be inaugurated by the unselfishness of Undershaft and Bodger. Oh be joyful! [He takes the drumsticks from his pockets and flourishes them].\r\n\r\nMrs Baines [taking the cheque] The longer I live the more proof I see that there is an Infinite Goodness that turns everything to the work of salvation sooner or later. Who would have thought that any good could have come out of war and drink? And yet their profits are brought today to the feet of salvation to do its blessed work. [She is affected to tears].\r\n\r\nJenny [running to Mrs Baines and throwing her arms round her] Oh dear! how blessed, how glorious it all is!\r\n\r\nCusins [in a convulsion of irony] Let us seize this unspeakable moment. Let us march to the great meeting at once. Excuse me just an instant. [He rushes into the shelter. Jenny takes her tambourine from the drum head].\r\n\r\nMrs Baines. Mr Undershaft: have you ever seen a thousand people fall on their knees with one impulse and pray? Come with us to the meeting. Barbara shall tell them that the Army is saved, and saved through you.\r\n\r\nCusins [returning impetuously from the shelter with a flag and a trombone, and coming between Mrs Baines and Undershaft] You shall carry the flag down the first street, Mrs Baines [he gives her the flag]. Mr Undershaft is a gifted trombonist: he shall intone an Olympian diapason to the West Ham Salvation March. [Aside to Undershaft, as he forces the trombone on him] Blow, Machiavelli, blow.\r\n\r\nUndershaft [aside to him, as he takes the trombone] The trumpet in Zion[footnote]An allusion to Joel 2:1, \u201cBlow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain: let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the LORD cometh....\u201d[\/footnote]! [Cusins rushes to the drum, which he takes up and puts on. Undershaft continues, aloud] I will do my best. I could vamp a bass if I knew the tune.\r\n\r\nCusins. It is a wedding chorus from one of Donizetti\u2019s operas; but we have converted it. We convert everything to good here, including Bodger. You remember the chorus. \u201cFor thee immense rejoicing \u2014 immenso giubilo \u2014 immenso giubilo.\u201d [With drum obbligato] Rum tum ti tum tum, tum tum ti ta\u00a0\u2014\r\n\r\nBarbara. Dolly: you are breaking my heart.\r\n\r\nCusins. What is a broken heart more or less here? Dionysos Undershaft has descended. I am possessed.\r\n\r\nMrs Baines. Come, Barbara: I must have my dear Major to carry the flag with me.\r\n\r\nJenny. Yes, yes, Major darling.\r\n\r\nCusins [snatches the tambourine out of Jenny\u2019s hand and mutely offers it to Barbara].\r\n\r\nBarbara [coming forward a little as she puts the offer behind her with a shudder, whilst Cusins recklessly tosses the tambourine back to Jenny and goes to the gate] I can\u2019t come.\r\n\r\nJenny. Not come!\r\n\r\nMrs Baines [with tears in her eyes] Barbara: do you think I am wrong to take the money?\r\n\r\nBarbara [impulsively going to her and kissing her] No, no: God help you, dear, you must: you are saving the Army. Go; and may you have a great meeting!\r\n\r\nJenny. But arn\u2019t you coming?\r\n\r\nBarbara. No. [She begins taking off the silver brooch from her collar].\r\n\r\nMrs Baines. Barbara: what are you doing?\r\n\r\nJenny. Why are you taking your badge off? You can\u2019t be going to leave us, Major.\r\n\r\nBarbara [quietly] Father: come here.\r\n\r\nUndershaft [coming to her] My dear! [Seeing that she is going to pin the badge on his collar, he retreats to the penthouse in some alarm].\r\n\r\nBarbara [following him] Don\u2019t be frightened. [She pins the badge on and steps back towards the table, showing him to the others] There! It\u2019s not much for 5000 pounds is it?\r\n\r\nMrs Baines. Barbara: if you won\u2019t come and pray with us, promise me you will pray for us.\r\n\r\nBarbara. I can\u2019t pray now. Perhaps I shall never pray again.\r\n\r\nMrs Baines. Barbara!\r\n\r\nJenny. Major!\r\n\r\nBarbara [almost delirious] I can\u2019t bear any more. Quick march!\r\n\r\nCusins [calling to the procession in the street outside] Off we go. Play up, there! Immenso giubilo[footnote]From the wedding chorus in <em>Lucia di Lammermoor<\/em> by Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848).[\/footnote]. [He gives the time with his drum; and the band strikes up the march, which rapidly becomes more distant as the procession moves briskly away].\r\n\r\nMrs Baines. I must go, dear. You\u2019re overworked: you will be all right tomorrow. We\u2019ll never lose you. Now Jenny: step out with the old flag. Blood and Fire! [She marches out through the gate with her flag].\r\n\r\nJenny. Glory Hallelujah! [flourishing her tambourine and marching].\r\n\r\nUndershaft [to Cusins, as he marches out past him easing the slide of his trombone] \u201cMy ducats and my daughter\u201d[footnote]In <em>The Merchant of Venice<\/em>, 2.8.16, Shylock calls for justice after his daughter Jessica has taken his money and eloped with a Christian.[\/footnote]!\r\n\r\nCusins [following him out] Money and gunpowder!\r\n\r\nBarbara. Drunkenness and Murder! My God: why hast thou forsaken me[footnote]The lament of the crucified Jesus (Matthew 27:46).[\/footnote]?\r\n\r\nShe sinks on the form with her face buried in her hands. The march passes away into silence. Bill Walker steals across to her.\r\n\r\nBill [taunting] Wot prawce Selvytion nah?\r\n\r\nShirley. Don\u2019t you hit her when she\u2019s down.\r\n\r\nBill. She it me wen aw wiz dahn. Waw shouldn\u2019t I git a bit o me own back?\r\n\r\nBarbara [raising her head] I didn\u2019t take your money, Bill. [She crosses the yard to the gate and turns her back on the two men to hide her face from them].\r\n\r\nBill [sneering after her] Naow, it warn\u2019t enough for you. [Turning to the drum, he misses the money]. Ellow! If you ain\u2019t took it summun else az. Were\u2019s it gorn? Blame me if Jenny Ill didn\u2019t take it arter all!\r\n\r\nRummy [screaming at him from the loft] You lie, you dirty blackguard! Snobby Price pinched it off the drum wen e took ap iz cap. I was ap ere all the time an see im do it.\r\n\r\nBill. Wot! Stowl maw money! Waw didn\u2019t you call thief on him, you silly old mucker you?\r\n\r\nRummy. To serve you aht for ittin me acrost the face. It\u2019s cost y\u2019pahnd, that az. [Raising a paean of squalid triumph] I done you. I\u2019m even with you. I\u2019ve ad it aht o y \u2014. [Bill snatches up Shirley\u2019s mug and hurls it at her. She slams the loft door and vanishes. The mug smashes against the door and falls in fragments].\r\n\r\nBill [beginning to chuckle] Tell us, ole man, wot o\u2019clock this morrun was it wen im as they call Snobby Prawce was sived?\r\n\r\nBarbara [turning to him more composedly, and with unspoiled sweetness] About half past twelve, Bill. And he pinched your pound at a quarter to two. I know. Well, you can\u2019t afford to lose it. I\u2019ll send it to you.\r\n\r\nBill [his voice and accent suddenly improving] Not if I was to starve for it. I ain\u2019t to be bought.\r\n\r\nShirley. Ain\u2019t you? You\u2019d sell yourself to the devil for a pint o beer; ony there ain\u2019t no devil to make the offer.\r\n\r\nBill [unshamed] So I would, mate, and often av, cheerful. But she cawn\u2019t buy me. [Approaching Barbara] You wanted my soul, did you? Well, you ain\u2019t got it.\r\n\r\nBarbara. I nearly got it, Bill. But we\u2019ve sold it back to you for ten thousand pounds.\r\n\r\nShirley. And dear at the money!\r\n\r\nBarbara. No, Peter: it was worth more than money.\r\n\r\nBill [salvationproof] It\u2019s no good: you cawn\u2019t get rahnd me nah. I don\u2019t blieve in it; and I\u2019ve seen today that I was right. [Going] So long, old soupkitchener! Ta, ta, Major Earl\u2019s Grendorter! [Turning at the gate] Wot prawce Selvytion nah? Snobby Prawce! Ha! ha!\r\n\r\nBarbara [offering her hand] Goodbye, Bill.\r\n\r\nBill [taken aback, half plucks his cap off then shoves it on again defiantly] Git aht. [Barbara drops her hand, discouraged. He has a twinge of remorse]. But thet\u2019s aw rawt, you knaow. Nathink pasnl. Naow mellice. So long, Judy. [He goes].\r\n\r\nBarbara. No malice. So long, Bill.\r\n\r\nShirley [shaking his head] You make too much of him, miss, in your innocence.\r\n\r\nBarbara [going to him] Peter: I\u2019m like you now. Cleaned out, and lost my job.\r\n\r\nShirley. You\u2019ve youth an hope. That\u2019s two better than me. That\u2019s hope for you.\r\n\r\nBarbara. I\u2019ll get you a job, Peter, the youth will have to be enough for me. [She counts her money]. I have just enough left for two teas at Lockharts, a Rowton doss[footnote]Lockharts, a chain of eating-houses in London; Rowton doss, a cheap hostel for working men, founded by Lord Rowton (1838-1903).[\/footnote]\u00a0for you, and my tram and bus home. [He frowns and rises with offended pride. She takes his arm]. Don\u2019t be proud, Peter: it\u2019s sharing between friends. And promise me you\u2019ll talk to me and not let me cry. [She draws him towards the gate].\r\n\r\nShirley. Well, I\u2019m not accustomed to talk to the like of you\u00a0\u2014\r\n\r\nBarbara [urgently] Yes, yes: you must talk to me. Tell me about Tom Paine\u2019s books and Bradlaugh[footnote]Charles Bradlaugh (1833-1891), a British atheist and free-thinker.[\/footnote]\u2019s lectures. Come along.\r\n\r\nShirley. Ah, if you would only read Tom Paine[footnote]Tom Paine (1737-1809), author of <em>The Rights of Man<\/em> (1791), a defense of the French Revolution, and <em>The Age of Reason<\/em> (1793), which offers rationalist critique of organized religion.[\/footnote]\u00a0in the proper spirit, miss! [They go out through the gate together].","rendered":"<p>The yard of the West Ham shelter of the Salvation Army is a cold place on a January morning. The building itself, an old warehouse, is newly whitewashed. Its gabled end projects into the yard in the middle, with a door on the ground floor, and another in the loft above it without any balcony or ladder, but with a pulley rigged over it for hoisting sacks. Those who come from this central gable end into the yard have the gateway leading to the street on their left, with a stone horse-trough just beyond it, and, on the right, a penthouse shielding a table from the weather. There are forms<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Benches.\" id=\"return-footnote-311-1\" href=\"#footnote-311-1\" aria-label=\"Footnote 1\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[1]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0at the table; and on them are seated a man and a woman, both much down on their luck, finishing a meal of bread [one thick slice each, with margarine and golden syrup] and diluted milk.<\/p>\n<p>The man, a workman out of employment, is young, agile, a talker, a poser, sharp enough to be capable of anything in reason except honesty or altruistic considerations of any kind. The woman is a commonplace old bundle of poverty and hard-worn humanity. She looks sixty and probably is forty-five. If they were rich people, gloved and muffed and well wrapped up in furs and overcoats, they would be numbed and miserable; for it is a grindingly cold, raw, January day; and a glance at the background of grimy warehouses and leaden sky visible over the whitewashed walls of the yard would drive any idle rich person straight to the Mediterranean. But these two, being no more troubled with visions of the Mediterranean than of the moon, and being compelled to keep more of their clothes in the pawnshop, and less on their persons, in winter than in summer, are not depressed by the cold: rather are they stung into vivacity, to which their meal has just now given an almost jolly turn. The man takes a pull at his mug, and then gets up and moves about the yard with his hands deep in his pockets, occasionally breaking into a stepdance.<\/p>\n<p>The Woman. Feel better arter<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"After.\" id=\"return-footnote-311-2\" href=\"#footnote-311-2\" aria-label=\"Footnote 2\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[2]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0your meal, sir?<\/p>\n<p>The Man. No. Call that a meal! Good enough for you, praps; but wot is it to me, an intelligent workin man.<\/p>\n<p>The Woman. Workin man! Wot are you?<\/p>\n<p>The Man. Painter.<\/p>\n<p>The Woman [sceptically] Yus, I dessay.<\/p>\n<p>The Man. Yus, you dessay! I know. Every loafer that can\u2019t do nothink calls isself a painter. Well, I\u2019m a real painter: grainer, finisher, thirty-eight bob a week when I can get it.<\/p>\n<p>The Woman. Then why don\u2019t you go and get it?<\/p>\n<p>The Man. I\u2019ll tell you why. Fust: I\u2019m intelligent \u2014 fffff! it\u2019s rotten cold here [he dances a step or two]\u2014 yes: intelligent beyond the station o life into which it has pleased the capitalists to call me; and they don\u2019t like a man that sees through em. Second, an intelligent bein needs a doo share of appiness; so I drink somethink cruel when I get the chawnce. Third, I stand by my class and do as little as I can so\u2019s to leave arf the job for me fellow workers. Fourth, I\u2019m fly<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Clever.\" id=\"return-footnote-311-3\" href=\"#footnote-311-3\" aria-label=\"Footnote 3\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[3]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0enough to know wots inside the law and wots outside it; and inside it I do as the capitalists do: pinch wot I can lay me ands on. In a proper state of society I am sober, industrious and honest: in Rome, so to speak, I do as the Romans do. Wots the consequence? When trade is bad \u2014 and it\u2019s rotten bad just now \u2014 and the employers az to sack arf their men, they generally start on me.<\/p>\n<p>The Woman. What\u2019s your name?<\/p>\n<p>The Man. Price. Bronterre O\u2019Brien Price<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Price was named after James Bronterre O\u2019Brien (1805-1964), an Irish journalist and Chartist leader.\" id=\"return-footnote-311-4\" href=\"#footnote-311-4\" aria-label=\"Footnote 4\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[4]<\/sup><\/a>. Usually called Snobby Price, for short.<\/p>\n<p>The Woman. Snobby\u2019s a carpenter, ain\u2019t it? You said you was a painter.<\/p>\n<p>Price. Not that kind of snob, but the genteel sort. I\u2019m too uppish, owing to my intelligence, and my father being a Chartist<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Chartism was a workng-class movement beginnng in 1837, whose six demands were listed in The People\u2019s Charter of 1838. Their demands included manhood suffrage, vote by ballot, and abolition of property qualification for MPs.\" id=\"return-footnote-311-5\" href=\"#footnote-311-5\" aria-label=\"Footnote 5\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[5]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0and a reading, thinking man: a stationer, too. I\u2019m none of your common hewers of wood and drawers of water; and don\u2019t you forget it. [He returns to his seat at the table, and takes up his mug]. Wots YOUR name?<\/p>\n<p>The Woman. Rummy Mitchens, sir.<\/p>\n<p>Price [quaffing the remains of his milk to her] Your elth, Miss Mitchens.<\/p>\n<p>Rummy [correcting him] Missis Mitchens.<\/p>\n<p>Price. Wot! Oh Rummy, Rummy! Respectable married woman, Rummy, gittin rescued by the Salvation Army by pretendin to be a bad un. Same old game!<\/p>\n<p>Rummy. What am I to do? I can\u2019t starve. Them Salvation lasses is dear good girls; but the better you are, the worse they likes to think you were before they rescued you. Why shouldn\u2019t they av a bit o credit, poor loves? They\u2019re worn to rags by their work. And where would they get the money to rescue us if we was to let on we\u2019re no worse than other people? You know what ladies and gentlemen are.<\/p>\n<p>Price. Thievin swine! Wish I ad their job, Rummy, all the same. Wot does Rummy stand for? Pet name props?<\/p>\n<p>Rummy. Short for Romola.<\/p>\n<p>Price. For wot!?<\/p>\n<p>Rummy. Romola. It was out of a new book<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Romola (1863). A novel by George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans).\" id=\"return-footnote-311-6\" href=\"#footnote-311-6\" aria-label=\"Footnote 6\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[6]<\/sup><\/a>. Somebody me mother wanted me to grow up like.<\/p>\n<p>Price. We\u2019re companions in misfortune, Rummy. Both on us got names that nobody cawnt pronounce. Consequently I\u2019m Snobby and you\u2019re Rummy because Bill and Sally wasn\u2019t good enough for our parents. Such is life!<\/p>\n<p>Rummy. Who saved you, Mr. Price? Was it Major Barbara?<\/p>\n<p>Price. No: I come here on my own. I\u2019m goin to be Bronterre O\u2019Brien Price, the converted painter. I know wot they like. I\u2019ll tell em how I blasphemed and gambled and wopped my poor old mother\u00a0\u2014<\/p>\n<p>Rummy [shocked] Used you to beat your mother?<\/p>\n<p>Price. Not likely. She used to beat me. No matter: you come and listen to the converted painter, and you\u2019ll hear how she was a pious woman that taught me me prayers at er knee, an how I used to come home drunk and drag her out o bed be er snow white airs, an lam into er with the poker.<\/p>\n<p>Rummy. That\u2019s what\u2019s so unfair to us women. Your confessions is just as big lies as ours: you don\u2019t tell what you really done no more than us; but you men can tell your lies right out at the meetins and be made much of for it; while the sort o confessions we az to make az to be wispered to one lady at a time. It ain\u2019t right, spite of all their piety.<\/p>\n<p>Price. Right! Do you spose the Army\u2019d be allowed if it went and did right? Not much. It combs our air and makes us good little blokes to be robbed and put upon. But I\u2019ll play the game as good as any of em. I\u2019ll see somebody struck by lightnin, or hear a voice sayin \u201cSnobby Price: where will you spend eternity?\u201d I\u2019ll ave a time of it, I tell you.<\/p>\n<p>Rummy. You won\u2019t be let drink, though.<\/p>\n<p>Price. I\u2019ll take it out in gorspellin<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Gospelling, preaching.\" id=\"return-footnote-311-7\" href=\"#footnote-311-7\" aria-label=\"Footnote 7\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[7]<\/sup><\/a>, then. I don\u2019t want to drink if I can get fun enough any other way.<\/p>\n<p>Jenny Hill, a pale, overwrought, pretty Salvation lass of 18, comes in through the yard gate, leading Peter Shirley, a half hardened, half worn-out elderly man, weak with hunger.<\/p>\n<p>Jenny [supporting him] Come! pluck up. I\u2019ll get you something to eat. You\u2019ll be all right then.<\/p>\n<p>Price [rising and hurrying officiously to take the old man off Jenny\u2019s hands] Poor old man! Cheer up, brother: you\u2019ll find rest and peace and appiness ere. Hurry up with the food, miss: e\u2019s fair done. [Jenny hurries into the shelter]. Ere, buck up, daddy! She\u2019s fetchin y\u2019a thick slice o breadn treacle, an a mug o skyblue<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Skimmed milk.\" id=\"return-footnote-311-8\" href=\"#footnote-311-8\" aria-label=\"Footnote 8\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[8]<\/sup><\/a>. [He seats him at the corner of the table].<\/p>\n<p>Rummy [gaily] Keep up your old art! Never say die!<\/p>\n<p>Shirley. I\u2019m not an old man. I\u2019m ony 46. I\u2019m as good as ever I was. The grey patch come in my hair before I was thirty. All it wants is three pennorth o hair dye: am I to be turned on the streets to starve for it? Holy God! I\u2019ve worked ten to twelve hours a day since I was thirteen, and paid my way all through; and now am I to be thrown into the gutter and my job given to a young man that can do it no better than me because I\u2019ve black hair that goes white at the first change?<\/p>\n<p>Price [cheerfully] No good jawrin<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Jawing, talking.\" id=\"return-footnote-311-9\" href=\"#footnote-311-9\" aria-label=\"Footnote 9\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[9]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0about it. You\u2019re ony a jumped-up, jerked-off, orspittle<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Hospital. Turned away by the hospitals.\" id=\"return-footnote-311-10\" href=\"#footnote-311-10\" aria-label=\"Footnote 10\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[10]<\/sup><\/a>-turned-out incurable of an ole workin man: who cares about you? Eh? Make the thievin swine give you a meal: they\u2019ve stole many a one from you. Get a bit o your own back. [Jenny returns with the usual meal]. There you are, brother. Awsk a blessin an tuck that into you.<\/p>\n<p>Shirley [looking at it ravenously but not touching it, and crying like a child] I never took anything before.<\/p>\n<p>Jenny [petting him] Come, come! the Lord sends it to you: he wasn\u2019t above taking bread from his friends; and why should you be? Besides, when we find you a job you can pay us for it if you like.<\/p>\n<p>Shirley [eagerly] Yes, yes: that\u2019s true. I can pay you back: it\u2019s only a loan. [Shivering] Oh Lord! oh Lord! [He turns to the table and attacks the meal ravenously].<\/p>\n<p>Jenny. Well, Rummy, are you more comfortable now?<\/p>\n<p>Rummy. God bless you, lovey! You\u2019ve fed my body and saved my soul, haven\u2019t you? [Jenny, touched, kisses her] Sit down and rest a bit: you must be ready to drop.<\/p>\n<p>Jenny. I\u2019ve been going hard since morning. But there\u2019s more work than we can do. I mustn\u2019t stop.<\/p>\n<p>Rummy. Try a prayer for just two minutes. You\u2019ll work all the better after.<\/p>\n<p>Jenny [her eyes lighting up] Oh isn\u2019t it wonderful how a few minutes prayer revives you! I was quite lightheaded at twelve o\u2019clock, I was so tired; but Major Barbara just sent me to pray for five minutes; and I was able to go on as if I had only just begun. [To Price] Did you have a piece of bread?<\/p>\n<p>Paige [with unction] Yes, miss; but I\u2019ve got the piece that I value more; and that\u2019s the peace that passeth hall hannerstennin<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"\u201cThe peace of God which passeth all understanding\u201d (Philippians 4:7).\" id=\"return-footnote-311-11\" href=\"#footnote-311-11\" aria-label=\"Footnote 11\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[11]<\/sup><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Rummy [fervently] Glory Hallelujah!<\/p>\n<p>Bill Walker, a rough customer of about 25, appears at the yard gate and looks malevolently at Jenny.<\/p>\n<p>Jenny. That makes me so happy. When you say that, I feel wicked for loitering here. I must get to work again.<\/p>\n<p>She is hurrying to the shelter, when the new-comer moves quickly up to the door and intercepts her. His manner is so threatening that she retreats as he comes at her truculently, driving her down the yard.<\/p>\n<p>Bill. I know you. You\u2019re the one that took away my girl. You\u2019re the one that set er agen me. Well, I\u2019m goin to av er out<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"That is, have her out of the shelter.\" id=\"return-footnote-311-12\" href=\"#footnote-311-12\" aria-label=\"Footnote 12\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[12]<\/sup><\/a>. Not that I care a curse for her or you: see? But I\u2019ll let er know; and I\u2019ll let you know. I\u2019m goin to give er a doin that\u2019ll teach er to cut away from me. Now in with you and tell er to come out afore I come in and kick er out. Tell er Bill Walker wants er. She\u2019ll know what that means; and if she keeps me waitin it\u2019ll be worse. You stop to jaw back at me; and I\u2019ll start on you: d\u2019ye hear? There\u2019s your way. In you go. [He takes her by the arm and slings her towards the door of the shelter. She falls on her hand and knee. Rummy helps her up again].<\/p>\n<p>Price [rising, and venturing irresolutely towards Bill]. Easy there, mate. She ain\u2019t doin you no arm.<\/p>\n<p>Bill. Who are you callin mate? [Standing over him threateningly]. You\u2019re goin to stand up for her, are you? Put up your ands.<\/p>\n<p>Rummy [running indignantly to him to scold him]. Oh, you great brute \u2014 [He instantly swings his left hand back against her face. She screams and reels back to the trough, where she sits down, covering her bruised face with her hands and rocking and moaning with pain].<\/p>\n<p>Jenny [going to her]. Oh God forgive you! How could you strike an old woman like that?<\/p>\n<p>Bill [seizing her by the hair so violently that she also screams, and tearing her away from the old woman]. You Gawd forgive me again and I\u2019ll Gawd forgive you one on the jaw that\u2019ll stop you prayin for a week. [Holding her and turning fiercely on Price]. Av you anything to say agen it? Eh?<\/p>\n<p>Price [intimidated]. No, matey: she ain\u2019t anything to do with me.<\/p>\n<p>Bill. Good job for you! I\u2019d put two meals into you and fight you with one finger after, you starved cur. [To Jenny] Now are you goin to fetch out Mog Habbijam<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"The name of Walker\u2019s girlfriend. Possibly Maude Havisham or Haversham.\" id=\"return-footnote-311-13\" href=\"#footnote-311-13\" aria-label=\"Footnote 13\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[13]<\/sup><\/a>; or am I to knock your face off you and fetch her myself?<\/p>\n<p>Jenny [writhing in his grasp] Oh please someone go in and tell Major Barbara \u2014[she screams again as he wrenches her head down; and Price and Rummy, flee into the shelter].<\/p>\n<p>Bill. You want to go in and tell your Major of me, do you?<\/p>\n<p>Jenny. Oh please don\u2019t drag my hair. Let me go.<\/p>\n<p>Bill. Do you or don\u2019t you? [She stifles a scream]. Yes or no.<\/p>\n<p>Jenny. God give me strength\u00a0\u2014<\/p>\n<p>Bill [striking her with his fist in the face] Go and show her that, and tell her if she wants one like it to come and interfere with me. [Jenny, crying with pain, goes into the shed. He goes to the form and addresses the old man]. Here: finish your mess; and get out o my way.<\/p>\n<p>Shirley [springing up and facing him fiercely, with the mug in his hand] You take a liberty with me, and I\u2019ll smash you over the face with the mug and cut your eye out. Ain\u2019t you satisfied \u2014 young whelps like you \u2014 with takin the bread out o the mouths of your elders that have brought you up and slaved for you, but you must come shovin and cheekin and bullyin in here, where the bread o charity is sickenin in our stummicks?<\/p>\n<p>Bill [contemptuously, but backing a little] Wot good are you, you old palsy mug? Wot good are you?<\/p>\n<p>Shirley. As good as you and better. I\u2019ll do a day\u2019s work agen you or any fat young soaker of your age. Go and take my job at Horrockses<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Horrocks, a cotton mill in Preston, Lancashire.\" id=\"return-footnote-311-14\" href=\"#footnote-311-14\" aria-label=\"Footnote 14\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[14]<\/sup><\/a>, where I worked for ten year. They want young men there: they can\u2019t afford to keep men over forty-five. They\u2019re very sorry \u2014 give you a character<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Letter of reference.\" id=\"return-footnote-311-15\" href=\"#footnote-311-15\" aria-label=\"Footnote 15\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[15]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0and happy to help you to get anything suited to your years \u2014 sure a steady man won\u2019t be long out of a job. Well, let em try you. They\u2019ll find the differ. What do you know? Not as much as how to beeyave yourself \u2014 layin your dirty fist across the mouth of a respectable woman!<\/p>\n<p>Bill. Don\u2019t provoke me to lay it acrost yours: d\u2019ye hear?<\/p>\n<p>Shirley [with blighting contempt] Yes: you like an old man to hit, don\u2019t you, when you\u2019ve finished with the women. I ain\u2019t seen you hit a young one yet.<\/p>\n<p>Bill [stung] You lie, you old soupkitchener, you. There was a young man here. Did I offer to hit him or did I not?<\/p>\n<p>Shirley. Was he starvin or was he not? Was he a man or only a crosseyed thief an a loafer? Would you hit my son-in-law\u2019s brother?<\/p>\n<p>Bill. Who\u2019s he?<\/p>\n<p>Shirley. Todger Fairmile o Balls Pond<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"A road in Hackney, northeast London.\" id=\"return-footnote-311-16\" href=\"#footnote-311-16\" aria-label=\"Footnote 16\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[16]<\/sup><\/a>. Him that won 20 pounds off the Japanese wrastler at the music hall by standin out 17 minutes 4 seconds agen him.<\/p>\n<p>Bill [sullenly] I\u2019m no music hall wrastler. Can he box?<\/p>\n<p>Shirley. Yes: an you can\u2019t.<\/p>\n<p>Bill. Wot! I can\u2019t, can\u2019t I? Wot\u2019s that you say [threatening him]?<\/p>\n<p>Shirley [not budging an inch] Will you box Todger Fairmile if I put him on to you? Say the word.<\/p>\n<p>Bill. [subsiding with a slouch] I\u2019ll stand up to any man alive, if he was ten Todger Fairmiles. But I don\u2019t set up to be a perfessional.<\/p>\n<p>Shirley [looking down on him with unfathomable disdain] YOU box! Slap an old woman with the back o your hand! You hadn\u2019t even the sense to hit her where a magistrate couldn\u2019t see the mark of it, you silly young lump of conceit and ignorance. Hit a girl in the jaw and ony make her cry! If Todger Fairmile\u2019d done it, she wouldn\u2019t a got up inside o ten minutes, no more than you would if he got on to you. Yah! I\u2019d set about you myself if I had a week\u2019s feedin in me instead o two months starvation. [He returns to the table to finish his meal].<\/p>\n<p>Bill [following him and stooping over him to drive the taunt in] You lie! you have the bread and treacle in you that you come here to beg.<\/p>\n<p>Shirley [bursting into tears] Oh God! it\u2019s true: I\u2019m only an old pauper on the scrap heap. [Furiously] But you\u2019ll come to it yourself; and then you\u2019ll know. You\u2019ll come to it sooner than a teetotaller like me, fillin yourself with gin at this hour o the mornin!<\/p>\n<p>Bill. I\u2019m no gin drinker, you old liar; but when I want to give my girl a bloomin good idin I like to av a bit o devil in me: see? An here I am, talkin to a rotten old blighter like you sted o givin her wot for<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"A beating.\" id=\"return-footnote-311-17\" href=\"#footnote-311-17\" aria-label=\"Footnote 17\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[17]<\/sup><\/a>. [Working himself into a rage] I\u2019m goin in there to fetch her out. [He makes vengefully for the shelter door].<\/p>\n<p>Shirley. You\u2019re goin to the station on a stretcher, more likely; and they\u2019ll take the gin and the devil out of you there when they get you inside. You mind what you\u2019re about: the major here is the Earl o Stevenage\u2019s granddaughter.<\/p>\n<p>Bill [checked] Garn!<\/p>\n<p>Shirley. You\u2019ll see.<\/p>\n<p>Bill [his resolution oozing] Well, I ain\u2019t done nothin to er.<\/p>\n<p>Shirley. Spose she said you did! who\u2019d believe you?<\/p>\n<p>Bill [very uneasy, skulking back to the corner of the penthouse] Gawd! There\u2019s no jastice in this country. To think wot them people can do! I\u2019m as good as er.<\/p>\n<p>Shirley. Tell her so. It\u2019s just what a fool like you would do.<\/p>\n<p>Barbara, brisk and businesslike, comes from the shelter with a note book, and addresses herself to Shirley. Bill, cowed, sits down in the corner on a form, and turns his back on them.<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. Good morning.<\/p>\n<p>Shirley [standing up and taking off his hat] Good morning, miss.<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. Sit down: make yourself at home. [He hesitates; but she puts a friendly hand on his shoulder and makes him obey]. Now then! since you\u2019ve made friends with us, we want to know all about you. Names and addresses and trades.<\/p>\n<p>Shirley. Peter Shirley. Fitter. Chucked out two months ago because I was too old.<\/p>\n<p>Barbara [not at all surprised] You\u2019d pass still. Why didn\u2019t you dye your hair?<\/p>\n<p>Shirley. I did. Me age come out at a coroner\u2019s inquest on me daughter.<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. Steady?<\/p>\n<p>Shirley. Teetotaller. Never out of a job before. Good worker. And sent to the knackers<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"A knacker\u2019s yard is a slaughterhouse for horses.\" id=\"return-footnote-311-18\" href=\"#footnote-311-18\" aria-label=\"Footnote 18\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[18]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0like an old horse!<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. No matter: if you did your part God will do his.<\/p>\n<p>Shirley [suddenly stubborn] My religion\u2019s no concern of anybody but myself.<\/p>\n<p>Barbara [guessing] I know. Secularist<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"An ethical system founded on natural morality and opposed to the tenets of revealed religion.\" id=\"return-footnote-311-19\" href=\"#footnote-311-19\" aria-label=\"Footnote 19\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[19]<\/sup><\/a>?<\/p>\n<p>Shirley [hotly] Did I offer to deny it?<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. Why should you? My own father\u2019s a Secularist, I think. Our Father \u2014 yours and mine \u2014 fulfils himself in many ways; and I daresay he knew what he was about when he made a Secularist of you. So buck up, Peter! we can always find a job for a steady man like you. [Shirley, disarmed, touches his hat. She turns from him to Bill]. What\u2019s your name?<\/p>\n<p>Bill [insolently] Wot\u2019s that to you?<\/p>\n<p>Barbara [calmly making a note] Afraid to give his name. Any trade?<\/p>\n<p>Bill. Who\u2019s afraid to give his name? [Doggedly, with a sense of heroically defying the House of Lords in the person of Lord Stevenage] If you want to bring a charge agen me, bring it. [She waits, unruffled]. My name\u2019s Bill Walker.<\/p>\n<p>Barbara [as if the name were familiar: trying to remember how] Bill Walker? [Recollecting] Oh, I know: you\u2019re the man that Jenny Hill was praying for inside just now. [She enters his name in her note book].<\/p>\n<p>Bill. Who\u2019s Jenny Hill? And what call has she to pray for me?<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. I don\u2019t know. Perhaps it was you that cut her lip.<\/p>\n<p>Bill [defiantly] Yes, it was me that cut her lip. I ain\u2019t afraid o you.<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. How could you be, since you\u2019re not afraid of God? You\u2019re a brave man, Mr. Walker. It takes some pluck to do our work here; but none of us dare lift our hand against a girl like that, for fear of her father in heaven.<\/p>\n<p>Bill [sullenly] I want none o your cantin jaw. I suppose you think I come here to beg from you, like this damaged lot here. Not me. I don\u2019t want your bread and scrape and catlap<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Milk.\" id=\"return-footnote-311-20\" href=\"#footnote-311-20\" aria-label=\"Footnote 20\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[20]<\/sup><\/a>. I don\u2019t believe in your Gawd, no more than you do yourself.<\/p>\n<p>Barbara [sunnily apologetic and ladylike, as on a new footing with him] Oh, I beg your pardon for putting your name down, Mr. Walker. I didn\u2019t understand. I\u2019ll strike it out.<\/p>\n<p>Bill [taking this as a slight, and deeply wounded by it] Eah! you let my name alone. Ain\u2019t it good enough to be in your book?<\/p>\n<p>Barbara [considering] Well, you see, there\u2019s no use putting down your name unless I can do something for you, is there? What\u2019s your trade?<\/p>\n<p>Bill [still smarting] That\u2019s no concern o yours.<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. Just so. [very businesslike] I\u2019ll put you down as [writing] the man who \u2014 struck \u2014 poor little Jenny Hill \u2014 in the mouth.<\/p>\n<p>Bill [rising threateningly] See here. I\u2019ve ad enough o this.<\/p>\n<p>Barbara [quite sunny and fearless] What did you come to us for?<\/p>\n<p>Bill. I come for my girl, see? I come to take her out o this and to break er jaws for her.<\/p>\n<p>Barbara [complacently] You see I was right about your trade. [Bill, on the point of retorting furiously, finds himself, to his great shame and terror, in danger of crying instead. He sits down again suddenly]. What\u2019s her name?<\/p>\n<p>Bill [dogged] Er name\u2019s Mog Abbijam: thats wot her name is.<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. Oh, she\u2019s gone to Canning Town, to our barracks there.<\/p>\n<p>Bill [fortified by his resentment of Mog\u2019s perfidy] is she? [Vindictively] Then I\u2019m goin to Kennintahn arter her. [He crosses to the gate; hesitates; finally comes back at Barbara]. Are you lyin to me to get shut o me?<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. I don\u2019t want to get shut of you. I want to keep you here and save your soul. You\u2019d better stay: you\u2019re going to have a bad time today, Bill.<\/p>\n<p>Bill. Who\u2019s goin to give it to me? You, praps.<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. Someone you don\u2019t believe in. But you\u2019ll be glad afterwards.<\/p>\n<p>Bill [slinking off] I\u2019ll go to Kennintahn to be out o the reach o your tongue. [Suddenly turning on her with intense malice] And if I don\u2019t find Mog there, I\u2019ll come back and do two years for you, selp me Gawd if I don\u2019t!<\/p>\n<p>Barbara [a shade kindlier, if possible] It\u2019s no use, Bill. She\u2019s got another bloke.<\/p>\n<p>Bill. Wot!<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. One of her own converts. He fell in love with her when he saw her with her soul saved, and her face clean, and her hair washed.<\/p>\n<p>Bill [surprised] Wottud she wash it for, the carroty slut? It\u2019s red.<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. It\u2019s quite lovely now, because she wears a new look in her eyes with it. It\u2019s a pity you\u2019re too late. The new bloke has put your nose out of joint, Bill.<\/p>\n<p>Bill. I\u2019ll put his nose out o joint for him. Not that I care a curse for her, mind that. But I\u2019ll teach her to drop me as if I was dirt. And I\u2019ll teach him to meddle with my Judy. Wots iz bleedin name?<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. Sergeant Todger Fairmile.<\/p>\n<p>Shirley [rising with grim joy] I\u2019ll go with him, miss. I want to see them two meet. I\u2019ll take him to the infirmary when it\u2019s over.<\/p>\n<p>Bill [to Shirley, with undissembled misgiving] Is that im you was speakin on?<\/p>\n<p>Shirley. That\u2019s him.<\/p>\n<p>Bill. Im that wrastled in the music all?<\/p>\n<p>Shirley. The competitions at the National Sportin Club was worth nigh a hundred a year to him. He\u2019s gev em up now for religion; so he\u2019s a bit fresh for want of the exercise he was accustomed to. He\u2019ll be glad to see you. Come along.<\/p>\n<p>Bill. Wots is weight?<\/p>\n<p>Shirley. Thirteen four<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"13 stone = 13 x 14 pounds\u00a0plus 4, or 186 pounds. One stone is equal to 14 pounds.\" id=\"return-footnote-311-21\" href=\"#footnote-311-21\" aria-label=\"Footnote 21\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[21]<\/sup><\/a>. [Bill\u2019s last hope expires].<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. Go and talk to him, Bill. He\u2019ll convert you.<\/p>\n<p>Shirley. He\u2019ll convert your head into a mashed potato.<\/p>\n<p>Bill [sullenly] I ain\u2019t afraid of him. I ain\u2019t afraid of ennybody. But he can lick me. She\u2019s done me. [He sits down moodily on the edge of the horse trough].<\/p>\n<p>Shirley. You ain\u2019t goin. I thought not. [He resumes his seat].<\/p>\n<p>Barbara [calling] Jenny!<\/p>\n<p>Jenny [appearing at the shelter door with a plaster on the corner of her mouth] Yes, Major.<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. Send Rummy Mitchens out to clear away here.<\/p>\n<p>Jenny. I think she\u2019s afraid.<\/p>\n<p>Barbara [her resemblance to her mother flashing out for a moment] Nonsense! she must do as she\u2019s told.<\/p>\n<p>Jenny [calling into the shelter] Rummy: the Major says you must come.<\/p>\n<p>Jenny comes to Barbara, purposely keeping on the side next Bill, lest he should suppose that she shrank from him or bore malice.<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. Poor little Jenny! Are you tired? [Looking at the wounded cheek] Does it hurt?<\/p>\n<p>Jenny. No: it\u2019s all right now. It was nothing.<\/p>\n<p>Barbara [critically] It was as hard as he could hit, I expect. Poor Bill! You don\u2019t feel angry with him, do you?<\/p>\n<p>Jenny. Oh no, no, no: indeed I don\u2019t, Major, bless his poor heart! [Barbara kisses her; and she runs away merrily into the shelter. Bill writhes with an agonizing return of his new and alarming symptoms, but says nothing. Rummy Mitchens comes from the shelter].<\/p>\n<p>Barbara [going to meet Rummy] Now Rummy, bustle. Take in those mugs and plates to be washed; and throw the crumbs about for the birds.<\/p>\n<p>Rummy takes the three plates and mugs; but Shirley takes back his mug from her, as there it still some milk left in it.<\/p>\n<p>Rummy. There ain\u2019t any crumbs. This ain\u2019t a time to waste good bread on birds.<\/p>\n<p>Price [appearing at the shelter door] Gentleman come to see the shelter, Major. Says he\u2019s your father.<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. All right. Coming. [Snobby goes back into the shelter, followed by Barbara].<\/p>\n<p>Rummy [stealing across to Bill and addressing him in a subdued voice, but with intense conviction] I\u2019d av the lor<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"The law.\" id=\"return-footnote-311-22\" href=\"#footnote-311-22\" aria-label=\"Footnote 22\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[22]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0of you, you flat eared pignosed potwalloper, if she\u2019d let me. You\u2019re no gentleman, to hit a lady in the face. [Bill, with greater things moving in him, takes no notice].<\/p>\n<p>Shirley [following her] Here! in with you and don\u2019t get yourself into more trouble by talking.<\/p>\n<p>Rummy [with hauteur] I ain\u2019t ad the pleasure o being hintroduced to you, as I can remember. [She goes into the shelter with the plates].<\/p>\n<p>Bill [savagely] Don\u2019t you talk to me, d\u2019ye hear. You lea me alone, or I\u2019ll do you a mischief. I\u2019m not dirt under your feet, anyway.<\/p>\n<p>Shirley [calmly] Don\u2019t you be afeerd. You ain\u2019t such prime company that you need expect to be sought after. [He is about to go into the shelter when Barbara comes out, with Undershaft on her right].<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. Oh there you are, Mr Shirley! [Between them] This is my father: I told you he was a Secularist, didn\u2019t I? Perhaps you\u2019ll be able to comfort one another.<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft [startled] A Secularist! Not the least in the world: on the contrary, a confirmed mystic.<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. Sorry, I\u2019m sure. By the way, papa, what is your religion \u2014 in case I have to introduce you again?<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft. My religion? Well, my dear, I am a Millionaire. That is my religion.<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. Then I\u2019m afraid you and Mr Shirley wont be able to comfort one another after all. You\u2019re not a Millionaire, are you, Peter?<\/p>\n<p>Shirley. No; and proud of it.<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft [gravely] Poverty, my friend, is not a thing to be proud of.<\/p>\n<p>Shirley [angrily] Who made your millions for you? Me and my like. What\u2019s kep us poor? Keepin you rich. I wouldn\u2019t have your conscience, not for all your income.<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft. I wouldn\u2019t have your income, not for all your conscience, Mr Shirley. [He goes to the penthouse and sits down on a form].<\/p>\n<p>Barbara [stopping Shirley adroitly as he is about to retort] You wouldn\u2019t think he was my father, would you, Peter? Will you go into the shelter and lend the lasses a hand for a while: we\u2019re worked off our feet.<\/p>\n<p>Shirley [bitterly] Yes: I\u2019m in their debt for a meal, ain\u2019t I?<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. Oh, not because you\u2019re in their debt; but for love of them, Peter, for love of them. [He cannot understand, and is rather scandalized]. There! Don\u2019t stare at me. In with you; and give that conscience of yours a holiday [bustling him into the shelter].<\/p>\n<p>Shirley [as he goes in] Ah! it\u2019s a pity you never was trained to use your reason, miss. You\u2019d have been a very taking<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Convincing.\" id=\"return-footnote-311-23\" href=\"#footnote-311-23\" aria-label=\"Footnote 23\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[23]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0lecturer on Secularism.<\/p>\n<p>Barbara turns to her father.<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft. Never mind me, my dear. Go about your work; and let me watch it for a while.<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. All right.<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft. For instance, what\u2019s the matter with that out-patient over there?<\/p>\n<p>Barbara [looking at Bill, whose attitude has never changed, and whose expression of brooding wrath has deepened] Oh, we shall cure him in no time. Just watch. [She goes over to Bill and waits. He glances up at her and casts his eyes down again, uneasy, but grimmer than ever]. It would be nice to just stamp on Mog Habbijam\u2019s face, wouldn\u2019t it, Bill?<\/p>\n<p>Bill [starting up from the trough in consternation] It\u2019s a lie: I never said so. [She shakes her head]. Who told you wot was in my mind?<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. Only your new friend.<\/p>\n<p>Bill. Wot new friend?<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. The devil, Bill. When he gets round people they get miserable, just like you.<\/p>\n<p>Bill [with a heartbreaking attempt at devil-may-care cheerfulness] I ain\u2019t miserable. [He sits down again, and stretches his legs in an attempt to seem indifferent].<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. Well, if you\u2019re happy, why don\u2019t you look happy, as we do?<\/p>\n<p>Bill [his legs curling back in spite of him] I\u2019m appy enough, I tell you. Why don\u2019t you lea me alown? Wot av I done to you? I ain\u2019t smashed your face, av I?<\/p>\n<p>Barbara [softly: wooing his soul] It\u2019s not me that\u2019s getting at you, Bill.<\/p>\n<p>Bill. Who else is it?<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. Somebody that doesn\u2019t intend you to smash women\u2019s faces, I suppose. Somebody or something that wants to make a man of you.<\/p>\n<p>Bill [blustering] Make a man o ME! Ain\u2019t I a man? eh? ain\u2019t I a man? Who sez I\u2019m not a man?<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. There\u2019s a man in you somewhere, I suppose. But why did he let you hit poor little Jenny Hill? That wasn\u2019t very manly of him, was it?<\/p>\n<p>Bill [tormented] Av done with it, I tell you. Chock<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Chuck, stop.\" id=\"return-footnote-311-24\" href=\"#footnote-311-24\" aria-label=\"Footnote 24\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[24]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0it. I\u2019m sick of your Jenny Ill and er silly little face.<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. Then why do you keep thinking about it? Why does it keep coming up against you in your mind? You\u2019re not getting converted, are you?<\/p>\n<p>Bill [with conviction] Not ME. Not likely. Not arf.<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. That\u2019s right, Bill. Hold out against it. Put out your strength. Don\u2019t let\u2019s get you cheap. Todger Fairmile said he wrestled for three nights against his Salvation harder than he ever wrestled with the Jap at the music hall. He gave in to the Jap when his arm was going to break. But he didn\u2019t give in to his salvation until his heart was going to break. Perhaps you\u2019ll escape that. You haven\u2019t any heart, have you?<\/p>\n<p>Bill. Wot dye mean? Wy ain\u2019t I got a art the same as ennybody else?<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. A man with a heart wouldn\u2019t have bashed poor little Jenny\u2019s face, would he?<\/p>\n<p>Bill [almost crying] Ow, will you lea me alown? Av I ever offered to meddle with you, that you come noggin and provowkin me lawk this? [He writhes convulsively from his eyes to his toes].<\/p>\n<p>Barbara [with a steady soothing hand on his arm and a gentle voice that never lets him go] It\u2019s your soul that\u2019s hurting you, Bill, and not me. We\u2019ve been through it all ourselves. Come with us, Bill. [He looks wildly round]. To brave manhood on earth and eternal glory in heaven. [He is on the point of breaking down]. Come. [A drum is heard in the shelter; and Bill, with a gasp, escapes from the spell as Barbara turns quickly. Adolphus enters from the shelter with a big drum]. Oh! there you are, Dolly. Let me introduce a new friend of mine, Mr Bill Walker. This is my bloke, Bill: Mr Cusins. [Cusins salutes with his drumstick].<\/p>\n<p>Bill. Goin to marry im?<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. Yes.<\/p>\n<p>Bill [fervently] Gawd elp im! Gawd elp im!<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. Why? Do you think he won\u2019t be happy with me?<\/p>\n<p>Bill. I\u2019ve only ad to stand it for a mornin: e\u2019ll av to stand it for a lifetime.<\/p>\n<p>Cusins. That is a frightful reflection, Mr Walker. But I can\u2019t tear myself away from her.<\/p>\n<p>Bill. Well, I can. [To Barbara] Eah! do you know where I\u2019m goin to, and wot I\u2019m goin to do?<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. Yes: you\u2019re going to heaven; and you\u2019re coming back here before the week\u2019s out to tell me so.<\/p>\n<p>Bill. You lie. I\u2019m goin to Kennintahn, to spit in Todger Fairmile\u2019s eye. I bashed Jenny Ill\u2019s face; and now I\u2019ll get me own face bashed and come back and show it to er. E\u2019ll it me ardern I it er. That\u2019ll make us square. [To Adolphus] Is that fair or is it not? You\u2019re a genlmn: you oughter know.<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. Two black eyes wont make one white one, Bill.<\/p>\n<p>Bill. I didn\u2019t ast you. Cawn\u2019t you never keep your mahth shut? I ast the genlmn.<\/p>\n<p>Cusins [reflectively] Yes: I think you\u2019re right, Mr Walker. Yes: I should do it. It\u2019s curious: it\u2019s exactly what an ancient Greek would have done.<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. But what good will it do?<\/p>\n<p>Cusins. Well, it will give Mr Fairmile some exercise; and it will satisfy Mr Walker\u2019s soul.<\/p>\n<p>Bill. Rot! there ain\u2019t no sach a thing as a soul. Ah kin you tell wether I\u2019ve a soul or not? You never seen it.<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. I\u2019ve seen it hurting you when you went against it.<\/p>\n<p>Bill [with compressed aggravation] If you was my girl and took the word out o me mahth lawk thet, I\u2019d give you suthink you\u2019d feel urtin, so I would. [To Adolphus] You take my tip, mate. Stop er jawr; or you\u2019ll die afore your time. [With intense expression] Wore aht: thets wot you\u2019ll be: wore aht. [He goes away through the gate].<\/p>\n<p>Cusins [looking after him] I wonder!<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. Dolly! [indignant, in her mother\u2019s manner].<\/p>\n<p>Cusins. Yes, my dear, it\u2019s very wearing to be in love with you. If it lasts, I quite think I shall die young.<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. Should you mind?<\/p>\n<p>Cusins. Not at all. [He is suddenly softened, and kisses her over the drum, evidently not for the first time, as people cannot kiss over a big drum without practice. Undershaft coughs].<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. It\u2019s all right, papa, we\u2019ve not forgotten you. Dolly: explain the place to papa: I haven\u2019t time. [She goes busily into the shelter].<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft and Adolphus now have the yard to themselves. Undershaft, seated on a form, and still keenly attentive, looks hard at Adolphus. Adolphus looks hard at him.<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft. I fancy you guess something of what is in my mind, Mr Cusins. [Cusins flourishes his drumsticks as if in the art of beating a lively rataplan, but makes no sound]. Exactly so. But suppose Barbara finds you out!<\/p>\n<p>Cusins. You know, I do not admit that I am imposing on Barbara. I am quite genuinely interested in the views of the Salvation Army. The fact is, I am a sort of collector of religions; and the curious thing is that I find I can believe them all. By the way, have you any religion?<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft. Yes.<\/p>\n<p>Cusins. Anything out of the common?<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft. Only that there are two things necessary to Salvation.<\/p>\n<p>Cusins [disappointed, but polite] Ah, the Church Catechism. Charles Lomax also belongs to the Established Church.<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft. The two things are\u00a0\u2014<\/p>\n<p>Cusins. Baptism and\u00a0\u2014<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft. No. Money and gunpowder.<\/p>\n<p>Cusins [surprised, but interested] That is the general opinion of our governing classes. The novelty is in hearing any man confess it.<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft. Just so.<\/p>\n<p>Cusins. Excuse me: is there any place in your religion for honor, justice, truth, love, mercy and so forth?<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft. Yes: they are the graces and luxuries of a rich, strong, and safe life.<\/p>\n<p>Cusins. Suppose one is forced to choose between them and money or gunpowder?<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft. Choose money and gunpowder; for without enough of both you cannot afford the others.<\/p>\n<p>Cusins. That is your religion?<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft. Yes.<\/p>\n<p>The cadence of this reply makes a full close in the conversation. Cusins twists his face dubiously and contemplates Undershaft. Undershaft contemplates him.<\/p>\n<p>Cusins. Barbara won\u2019t stand that. You will have to choose between your religion and Barbara.<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft. So will you, my friend. She will find out that that drum of yours is hollow.<\/p>\n<p>Cusins. Father Undershaft: you are mistaken: I am a sincere Salvationist. You do not understand the Salvation Army. It is the army of joy, of love, of courage: it has banished the fear and remorse and despair of the old hellridden evangelical sects: it marches to fight the devil with trumpet and drum, with music and dancing, with banner and palm, as becomes a sally from heaven by its happy garrison. It picks the waster out of the public house and makes a man of him: it finds a worm wriggling in a back kitchen, and lo! a woman! Men and women of rank too, sons and daughters of the Highest. It takes the poor professor of Greek, the most artificial and self-suppressed of human creatures, from his meal of roots, and lets loose the rhapsodist in him; reveals the true worship of Dionysos<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Greek god of wine, religious ecstasy, and theater.\" id=\"return-footnote-311-25\" href=\"#footnote-311-25\" aria-label=\"Footnote 25\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[25]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0to him; sends him down the public street drumming dithyrambs<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Wild, impetuous lyric in praise of Dionysos (Bacchus).\" id=\"return-footnote-311-26\" href=\"#footnote-311-26\" aria-label=\"Footnote 26\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[26]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0[he plays a thundering flourish on the drum].<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft. You will alarm the shelter.<\/p>\n<p>Cusins. Oh, they are accustomed to these sudden ecstasies of piety. However, if the drum worries you \u2014 [he pockets the drumsticks; unhooks the drum; and stands it on the ground opposite the gateway].<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft. Thank you.<\/p>\n<p>Cusins. You remember what Euripides says about your money and gunpowder?<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft. No.<\/p>\n<p>Cusins [declaiming]<\/p>\n<p>One and another<\/p>\n<p>In money and guns may outpass his brother;<\/p>\n<p>And men in their millions float and flow<\/p>\n<p>And seethe with a million hopes as leaven;<\/p>\n<p>And they win their will; or they miss their will;<\/p>\n<p>And their hopes are dead or are pined for still:<\/p>\n<p>But whoe\u2019er can know<\/p>\n<p>As the long days go<\/p>\n<p>That to live is happy, has found <em>his<\/em> heaven.<\/p>\n<p>My translation<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"From Euripides\u2019 play The Bacchae (405 BC). Shaw uses here the 1904 translation of his friend, the Australian-born classicist Gilbert Murray (1866-1957), upon whom he based the character Adolphus Cusins.\" id=\"return-footnote-311-27\" href=\"#footnote-311-27\" aria-label=\"Footnote 27\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[27]<\/sup><\/a>: what do you think of it?<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft. I think, my friend, that if you wish to know, as the long days go, that to live is happy, you must first acquire money enough for a decent life, and power enough to be your own master.<\/p>\n<p>Cusins. You are damnably discouraging. [He resumes his declamation].<\/p>\n<p>Is it so hard a thing to see<\/p>\n<p>That the spirit of God \u2014 whate\u2019er it be \u2014<\/p>\n<p>The Law that abides and changes not, ages long,<\/p>\n<p>The Eternal and Nature-born: these things be strong.<\/p>\n<p>What else is Wisdom? What of Man\u2019s endeavor,<\/p>\n<p>Or God\u2019s high grace so lovely and so great?<\/p>\n<p>To stand from fear set free? to breathe and wait?<\/p>\n<p>To hold a hand uplifted over Fate?<\/p>\n<p>And shall not Barbara be loved for ever?<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft. Euripides mentions Barbara, does he?<\/p>\n<p>Cusins. It is a fair translation. The word means Loveliness.<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft. May I ask \u2014 as Barbara\u2019s father \u2014 how much a year she is to be loved for ever on?<\/p>\n<p>Cusins. As Barbara\u2019s father, that is more your affair than mine. I can feed her by teaching Greek: that is about all.<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft. Do you consider it a good match for her?<\/p>\n<p>Cusins [with polite obstinacy] Mr Undershaft: I am in many ways a weak, timid, ineffectual person; and my health is far from satisfactory. But whenever I feel that I must have anything, I get it, sooner or later. I feel that way about Barbara. I don\u2019t like marriage: I feel intensely afraid of it; and I don\u2019t know what I shall do with Barbara or what she will do with me. But I feel that I and nobody else must marry her. Please regard that as settled.\u2014 Not that I wish to be arbitrary; but why should I waste your time in discussing what is inevitable?<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft. You mean that you will stick at nothing not even the conversion of the Salvation Army to the worship of Dionysos.<\/p>\n<p>Cusins. The business of the Salvation Army is to save, not to wrangle about the name of the pathfinder. Dionysos or another: what does it matter?<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft [rising and approaching him] Professor Cusins you are a young man after my own heart.<\/p>\n<p>Cusins. Mr Undershaft: you are, as far as I am able to gather, a most infernal old rascal; but you appeal very strongly to my sense of ironic humor.<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft mutely offers his hand. They shake.<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft [suddenly concentrating himself] And now to business.<\/p>\n<p>Cusins. Pardon me. We were discussing religion. Why go back to such an uninteresting and unimportant subject as business?<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft. Religion is our business at present, because it is through religion alone that we can win Barbara.<\/p>\n<p>Cusins. Have you, too, fallen in love with Barbara?<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft. Yes, with a father\u2019s love.<\/p>\n<p>Cusins. A father\u2019s love for a grown-up daughter is the most dangerous of all infatuations. I apologize for mentioning my own pale, coy, mistrustful fancy in the same breath with it.<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft. Keep to the point. We have to win her; and we are neither of us Methodists<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Gen. William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, was originally a Methodist. Methodism was a reformist sect founded by John Wesley (1703-1791) from within the Church of England.\" id=\"return-footnote-311-28\" href=\"#footnote-311-28\" aria-label=\"Footnote 28\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[28]<\/sup><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Cusins. That doesn\u2019t matter. The power Barbara wields here \u2014 the power that wields Barbara herself \u2014 is not Calvinism, not Presbyterianism, not Methodism\u00a0\u2014<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft. Not Greek Paganism either, eh?<\/p>\n<p>Cusins. I admit that. Barbara is quite original in her religion.<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft [triumphantly] Aha! Barbara Undershaft would be. Her inspiration comes from within herself.<\/p>\n<p>Cusins. How do you suppose it got there?<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft [in towering excitement] It is the Undershaft inheritance. I shall hand on my torch to my daughter. She shall make my converts and preach my gospel.<\/p>\n<p>Cusins. What! Money and gunpowder!<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft. Yes, money and gunpowder; freedom and power; command of life and command of death.<\/p>\n<p>Cusins [urbanely: trying to bring him down to earth] This is extremely interesting, Mr Undershaft. Of course you know that you are mad.<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft [with redoubled force] And you?<\/p>\n<p>Cusins. Oh, mad as a hatter. You are welcome to my secret since I have discovered yours. But I am astonished. Can a madman make cannons?<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft. Would anyone else than a madman make them? And now [with surging energy] question for question. Can a sane man translate Euripides?<\/p>\n<p>Cusins. No.<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft [reining him by the shoulder] Can a sane woman make a man of a waster or a woman of a worm?<\/p>\n<p>Cusins [reeling before the storm] Father Colossus \u2014 Mammoth Millionaire\u00a0\u2014<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft [pressing him] Are there two mad people or three in this Salvation shelter to-day?<\/p>\n<p>Cusins. You mean Barbara is as mad as we are!<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft [pushing him lightly off and resuming his equanimity suddenly and completely] Pooh, Professor! let us call things by their proper names. I am a millionaire; you are a poet; Barbara is a savior of souls. What have we three to do with the common mob of slaves and idolaters? [He sits down again with a shrug of contempt for the mob].<\/p>\n<p>Cusins. Take care! Barbara is in love with the common people. So am I. Have you never felt the romance of that love?<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft [cold and sardonic] Have you ever been in love with Poverty, like St Francis? Have you ever been in love with Dirt, like St Simeon? Have you ever been in love with disease and suffering, like our nurses and philanthropists? Such passions are not virtues, but the most unnatural of all the vices. This love of the common people may please an earl\u2019s granddaughter and a university professor; but I have been a common man and a poor man; and it has no romance for me. Leave it to the poor to pretend that poverty is a blessing: leave it to the coward to make a religion of his cowardice by preaching humility: we know better than that. We three must stand together above the common people: how else can we help their children to climb up beside us? Barbara must belong to us, not to the Salvation Army.<\/p>\n<p>Cusins. Well, I can only say that if you think you will get her away from the Salvation Army by talking to her as you have been talking to me, you don\u2019t know Barbara.<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft. My friend: I never ask for what I can buy.<\/p>\n<p>Cusins [in a white fury] Do I understand you to imply that you can buy Barbara?<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft. No; but I can buy the Salvation Army.<\/p>\n<p>Cusins. Quite impossible.<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft. You shall see. All religious organizations exist by selling themselves to the rich.<\/p>\n<p>Cusins. Not the Army. That is the Church of the poor.<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft. All the more reason for buying it.<\/p>\n<p>Cusins. I don\u2019t think you quite know what the Army does for the poor.<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft. Oh yes I do. It draws their teeth: that is enough for me \u2014 as a man of business\u00a0\u2014<\/p>\n<p>Cusins. Nonsense! It makes them sober\u00a0\u2014<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft. I prefer sober workmen. The profits are larger.<\/p>\n<p>Cusins. \u2014 honest\u00a0\u2014<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft. Honest workmen are the most economical.<\/p>\n<p>Cusins. \u2014 attached to their homes\u00a0\u2014<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft. So much the better: they will put up with anything sooner than change their shop.<\/p>\n<p>Cusins. \u2014 happy\u00a0\u2014<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft. An invaluable safeguard against revolution.<\/p>\n<p>Cusins. \u2014 unselfish\u00a0\u2014<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft. Indifferent to their own interests, which suits me exactly.<\/p>\n<p>Cusins. \u2014 with their thoughts on heavenly things\u00a0\u2014<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft [rising] And not on Trade Unionism nor Socialism. Excellent.<\/p>\n<p>Cusins [revolted] You really are an infernal old rascal.<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft [indicating Peter Shirley, who has just came from the shelter and strolled dejectedly down the yard between them] And this is an honest man!<\/p>\n<p>Shirley. Yes; and what av I got by it? [he passes on bitterly and sits on the form, in the corner of the penthouse].<\/p>\n<p>Snobby Price, beaming sanctimoniously, and Jenny Hill, with a tambourine full of coppers, come from the shelter and go to the drum, on which Jenny begins to count the money.<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft [replying to Shirley] Oh, your employers must have got a good deal by it from first to last. [He sits on the table, with one foot on the side form. Cusins, overwhelmed, sits down on the same form nearer the shelter. Barbara comes from the shelter to the middle of the yard. She is excited and a little overwrought].<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. We\u2019ve just had a splendid experience meeting at the other gate in Cripps\u2019s lane. I\u2019ve hardly ever seen them so much moved as they were by your confession, Mr Price.<\/p>\n<p>Price. I could almost be glad of my past wickedness if I could believe that it would elp to keep hathers stright.<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. So it will, Snobby. How much, Jenny?<\/p>\n<p>Jenny. Four and tenpence, Major.<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. Oh Snobby, if you had given your poor mother just one more kick, we should have got the whole five shillings!<\/p>\n<p>Price. If she heard you say that, miss, she\u2019d be sorry I didn\u2019t. But I\u2019m glad. Oh what a joy it will be to her when she hears I\u2019m saved!<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft. Shall I contribute the odd twopence, Barbara? The millionaire\u2019s mite, eh? [He takes a couple of pennies from his pocket.]<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. How did you make that twopence?<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft. As usual. By selling cannons, torpedoes, submarines, and my new patent Grand Duke hand grenade.<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. Put it back in your pocket. You can\u2019t buy your Salvation here for twopence: you must work it out.<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft. Is twopence not enough? I can afford a little more, if you press me.<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. Two million millions would not be enough. There is bad blood on your hands; and nothing but good blood can cleanse them. Money is no use. Take it away. [She turns to Cusins]. Dolly: you must write another letter for me to the papers. [He makes a wry face]. Yes: I know you don\u2019t like it; but it must be done. The starvation this winter is beating us: everybody is unemployed. The General says we must close this shelter if we cant get more money. I force the collections at the meetings until I am ashamed, don\u2019t I, Snobby?<\/p>\n<p>Price. It\u2019s a fair treat to see you work it, miss. The way you got them up from three-and-six to four-and-ten with that hymn, penny by penny and verse by verse, was a caution. Not a Cheap Jack on Mile End Waste<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"A cheap-Jack is a travelling vendor of small wares, willing to take less than the price he first names. Mile End Waste is the market area of Mile End Road, London, the East End equivalent of Hyde Park Corner and place where William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army, gave his first open-air sermon.\" id=\"return-footnote-311-29\" href=\"#footnote-311-29\" aria-label=\"Footnote 29\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[29]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0could touch you at it.<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. Yes; but I wish we could do without it. I am getting at last to think more of the collection than of the people\u2019s souls. And what are those hatfuls of pence and halfpence? We want thousands! tens of thousands! hundreds of thousands! I want to convert people, not to be always begging for the Army in a way I\u2019d die sooner than beg for myself.<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft [in profound irony] Genuine unselfishness is capable of anything, my dear.<\/p>\n<p>Barbara [unsuspectingly, as she turns away to take the money from the drum and put it in a cash bag she carries] Yes, isn\u2019t it? [Undershaft looks sardonically at Cusins].<\/p>\n<p>Cusins [aside to Undershaft] Mephistopheles<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"The devil who bought Faust\u2019s soul. Machiavelli (1469-1527), Italian statesman and author whose name came to suggest politicians who use deceit to accomplish their ends.\" id=\"return-footnote-311-30\" href=\"#footnote-311-30\" aria-label=\"Footnote 30\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[30]<\/sup><\/a>! Machiavelli!<\/p>\n<p>Barbara [tears coming into her eyes as she ties the bag and pockets it] How are we to feed them? I can\u2019t talk religion to a man with bodily hunger in his eyes. [Almost breaking down] It\u2019s frightful.<\/p>\n<p>Jenny [running to her] Major, dear\u00a0\u2014<\/p>\n<p>Barbara [rebounding] No: don\u2019t comfort me. It will be all right. We shall get the money.<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft. How?<\/p>\n<p>Jenny. By praying for it, of course. Mrs Baines says she prayed for it last night; and she has never prayed for it in vain: never once. [She goes to the gate and looks out into the street].<\/p>\n<p>Barbara [who has dried her eyes and regained her composure] By the way, dad, Mrs Baines has come to march with us to our big meeting this afternoon; and she is very anxious to meet you, for some reason or other. Perhaps she\u2019ll convert you.<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft. I shall be delighted, my dear.<\/p>\n<p>Jenny [at the gate: excitedly] Major! Major! Here\u2019s that man back again.<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. What man?<\/p>\n<p>Jenny. The man that hit me. Oh, I hope he\u2019s coming back to join us.<\/p>\n<p>Bill Walker, with frost on his jacket, comes through the gate, his hands deep in his pockets and his chin sunk between his shoulders, like a cleaned-out gambler. He halts between Barbara and the drum.<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. Hullo, Bill! Back already!<\/p>\n<p>Bill [nagging at her] Bin talkin ever sense, av you?<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. Pretty nearly. Well, has Todger paid you out for poor Jenny\u2019s jaw?<\/p>\n<p>Bill. NO he ain\u2019t.<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. I thought your jacket looked a bit snowy.<\/p>\n<p>Bill. So it is snowy. You want to know where the snow come from, don\u2019t you?<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. Yes.<\/p>\n<p>Bill. Well, it come from off the ground in Parkinses Corner in Kennintahn. It got rubbed off be my shoulders see?<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. Pity you didn\u2019t rub some off with your knees, Bill! That would have done you a lot of good.<\/p>\n<p>Bill [with your mirthless humor] I was saving another man\u2019s knees at the time. E was kneelin on my ed, so e was.<\/p>\n<p>Jenny. Who was kneeling on your head?<\/p>\n<p>Bill. Todger was. E was prayin for me: prayin comfortable with me as a carpet. So was Mog. So was the ole bloomin meetin. Mog she sez \u201cO Lord break is stubborn spirit; but don\u2019t urt is dear art.\u201d That was wot she said. \u201cDon\u2019t urt is dear art\u201d! An er bloke \u2014 thirteen stun four!\u2014 kneelin wiv all is weight on me. Funny, ain\u2019t it?<\/p>\n<p>Jenny. Oh no. We\u2019re so sorry, Mr Walker.<\/p>\n<p>Barbara [enjoying it frankly] Nonsense! of course it\u2019s funny. Served you right, Bill! You must have done something to him first.<\/p>\n<p>Bill [doggedly] I did wot I said I\u2019d do. I spit in is eye. E looks up at the sky and sez, \u201cO that I should be fahnd worthy to be spit upon for the gospel\u2019s sake!\u201d a sez; an Mog sez \u201cGlory Allelloolier!\u201d; an then a called me Brother, an dahned me as if I was a kid and a was me mother washin me a Setterda nawt. I adn\u2019t just no show wiv im at all. Arf the street prayed; an the tother arf larfed fit to split theirselves. [To Barbara] There! are you settisfawd nah?<\/p>\n<p>Barbara [her eyes dancing] Wish I\u2019d been there, Bill.<\/p>\n<p>Bill. Yes: you\u2019d a got in a hextra bit o talk on me, wouldn\u2019t you?<\/p>\n<p>Jenny. I\u2019m so sorry, Mr. Walker.<\/p>\n<p>Bill [fiercely] Don\u2019t you go bein sorry for me: you\u2019ve no call. Listen ere. I broke your jawr.<\/p>\n<p>Jenny. No, it didn\u2019t hurt me: indeed it didn\u2019t, except for a moment. It was only that I was frightened.<\/p>\n<p>Bill. I don\u2019t want to be forgive be you, or be ennybody. Wot I did I\u2019ll pay for. I tried to get me own jawr broke to settisfaw you\u00a0\u2014<\/p>\n<p>Jenny [distressed] Oh no\u00a0\u2014<\/p>\n<p>Bill [impatiently] Tell y\u2019I did: cawn\u2019t you listen to wot\u2019s bein told you? All I got be it was bein made a sight of in the public street for me pains. Well, if I cawn\u2019t settisfaw you one way, I can another. Listen ere! I ad two quid saved agen the frost; an I\u2019ve a pahnd of it left. A mate n mine last week ad words with the Judy e\u2019s goin to marry. E give er wot-for; an e\u2019s bin fined fifteen bob. E ad a right to it er because they was goin to be marrid; but I adn\u2019t no right to it you; so put anather fawv bob on an call it a pahnd\u2019s worth. [He produces a sovereign]. Ere\u2019s the money. Take it; and let\u2019s av no more o your forgivin an prayin and your Major jawrin me. Let wot I done be done and paid for; and let there be a end of it.<\/p>\n<p>Jenny. Oh, I couldn\u2019t take it, Mr. Walker. But if you would give a shilling or two to poor Rummy Mitchens! you really did hurt her; and she\u2019s old.<\/p>\n<p>Bill [contemptuously] Not likely. I\u2019d give her anather as soon as look at er. Let her av the lawr o me as she threatened! She ain\u2019t forgiven me: not mach. Wot I done to er is not on me mawnd \u2014 wot she [indicating Barbara] might call on me conscience \u2014 no more than stickin a pig. It\u2019s this Christian game o yours that I won\u2019t av played agen me: this bloomin forgivin an noggin an jawrin that makes a man that sore that iz lawf\u2019s a burdn to im. I won\u2019t av it, I tell you; so take your money and stop throwin your silly bashed face hup agen me.<\/p>\n<p>Jenny. Major: may I take a little of it for the Army?<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. No: the Army is not to be bought. We want your soul, Bill; and we\u2019ll take nothing less.<\/p>\n<p>Bill [bitterly] I know. It ain\u2019t enough. Me an me few shillins is not good enough for you. You\u2019re a earl\u2019s grendorter, you are. Nothin less than a underd pahnd for you.<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft. Come, Barbara! you could do a great deal of good with a hundred pounds. If you will set this gentleman\u2019s mind at ease by taking his pound, I will give the other ninety-nine [Bill, astounded by such opulence, instinctively touches his cap].<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. Oh, you\u2019re too extravagant, papa. Bill offers twenty pieces of silver<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver (Matthew 26:15).\" id=\"return-footnote-311-31\" href=\"#footnote-311-31\" aria-label=\"Footnote 31\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[31]<\/sup><\/a>. All you need offer is the other ten. That will make the standard price to buy anybody who\u2019s for sale. I\u2019m not; and the Army\u2019s not. [To Bill] You\u2019ll never have another quiet moment, Bill, until you come round to us. You can\u2019t stand out against your salvation.<\/p>\n<p>Bill [sullenly] I cawn\u2019t stend aht agen music all wrastlers and artful tongued women. I\u2019ve offered to pay. I can do no more. Take it or leave it. There it is. [He throws the sovereign on the drum, and sits down on the horse-trough. The coin fascinates Snobby Price, who takes an early opportunity of dropping his cap on it].<\/p>\n<p>Mrs Baines comes from the shelter. She is dressed as a Salvation Army Commissioner. She is an earnest looking woman of about 40, with a caressing, urgent voice, and an appealing manner.<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. This is my father, Mrs Baines. [Undershaft comes from the table, taking his hat off with marked civility]. Try what you can do with him. He won\u2019t listen to me, because he remembers what a fool I was when I was a baby.<\/p>\n<p>[She leaves them together and chats with Jenny].<\/p>\n<p>Mrs Baines. Have you been shown over the shelter, Mr Undershaft? You know the work we\u2019re doing, of course.<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft [very civilly] The whole nation knows it, Mrs Baines.<\/p>\n<p>Mrs Baines. No, Sir: the whole nation does not know it, or we should not be crippled as we are for want of money to carry our work through the length and breadth of the land. Let me tell you that there would have been rioting this winter in London but for us.<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft. You really think so?<\/p>\n<p>Mrs Baines. I know it. I remember 1886<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Trafalgar Square Demonstration and Riot, February 8, 1886. After meetings of two leftist organizations broke up in Trafalgar Square, a crowd of 5,000 people rushed into Pall Mall and St. James, smashing windows of the exclusive men\u2019s clubs nearby.\" id=\"return-footnote-311-32\" href=\"#footnote-311-32\" aria-label=\"Footnote 32\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[32]<\/sup><\/a>, when you rich gentlemen hardened your hearts against the cry of the poor. They broke the windows of your clubs in Pall Mall.<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft [gleaming with approval of their method] And the Mansion House Fund<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Poor-relief fund originated by the Lord Mayor of London. Mansion House is the Lord Mayor\u2019s official residence.\" id=\"return-footnote-311-33\" href=\"#footnote-311-33\" aria-label=\"Footnote 33\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[33]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0went up next day from thirty thousand pounds to seventy-nine thousand! I remember quite well.<\/p>\n<p>Mrs Baines. Well, won\u2019t you help me to get at the people? They won\u2019t break windows then. Come here, Price. Let me show you to this gentleman [Price comes to be inspected]. Do you remember the window breaking?<\/p>\n<p>Price. My ole father thought it was the revolution, ma\u2019am.<\/p>\n<p>Mrs Baines. Would you break windows now?<\/p>\n<p>Price. Oh no ma\u2019m. The windows of eaven av bin opened to me. I know now that the rich man is a sinner like myself.<\/p>\n<p>Rummy [appearing above at the loft door] Snobby Price!<\/p>\n<p>Snobby. Wot is it?<\/p>\n<p>Rummy. Your mother\u2019s askin for you at the other gate in Crippses Lane. She\u2019s heard about your confession [Price turns pale].<\/p>\n<p>Mrs Baines. Go, Mr. Price; and pray with her.<\/p>\n<p>Jenny. You can go through the shelter, Snobby.<\/p>\n<p>Price [to Mrs Baines] I couldn\u2019t face her now; ma\u2019am, with all the weight of my sins fresh on me. Tell her she\u2019ll find her son at ome, waitin for her in prayer. [He skulks off through the gate, incidentally stealing the sovereign on his way out by picking up his cap from the drum].<\/p>\n<p>Mrs Baines [with swimming eyes] You see how we take the anger and the bitterness against you out of their hearts, Mr Undershaft.<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft. It is certainly most convenient and gratifying to all large employers of labor, Mrs Baines.<\/p>\n<p>Mrs Baines. Barbara: Jenny: I have good news: most wonderful news. [Jenny runs to her]. My prayers have been answered. I told you they would, Jenny, didn\u2019t I?<\/p>\n<p>Jenny. Yes, yes.<\/p>\n<p>Barbara [moving nearer to the drum] Have we got money enough to keep the shelter open?<\/p>\n<p>Mrs Baines. I hope we shall have enough to keep all the shelters open. Lord Saxmundham<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"An invented title.\" id=\"return-footnote-311-34\" href=\"#footnote-311-34\" aria-label=\"Footnote 34\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[34]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0has promised us five thousand pounds\u00a0\u2014<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. Hooray!<\/p>\n<p>Jenny. Glory!<\/p>\n<p>Mrs Baines. \u2014 if\u00a0\u2014<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. \u201cIf!\u201d If what?<\/p>\n<p>Mrs Baines. If five other gentlemen will give a thousand each to make it up to ten thousand.<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. Who is Lord Saxmundham? I never heard of him.<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft [who has pricked up his ears at the peer\u2019s name, and is now watching Barbara curiously] A new creation, my dear. You have heard of Sir Horace Bodger?<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. Bodger! Do you mean the distiller? Bodger\u2019s whisky!<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft. That is the man. He is one of the greatest of our public benefactors. He restored the cathedral at Hakington. They made him a baronet for that. He gave half a million to the funds of his party: they made him a baron for that.<\/p>\n<p>Shirley. What will they give him for the five thousand?<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft. There is nothing left to give him. So the five thousand, I should think, is to save his soul.<\/p>\n<p>Mrs Baines. Heaven grant it may! Oh Mr. Undershaft, you have some very rich friends. Can\u2019t you help us towards the other five thousand? We are going to hold a great meeting this afternoon at the Assembly Hall in the Mile End Road. If I could only announce that one gentleman had come forward to support Lord Saxmundham, others would follow. Don\u2019t you know somebody? Couldn\u2019t you? Wouldn\u2019t you? [her eyes fill with tears] oh, think of those poor people, Mr Undershaft: think of how much it means to them, and how little to a great man like you.<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft [sardonically gallant] Mrs Baines: you are irresistible. I can\u2019t disappoint you; and I can\u2019t deny myself the satisfaction of making Bodger pay up. You shall have your five thousand pounds.<\/p>\n<p>Mrs Baines. Thank God!<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft. You don\u2019t thank me?<\/p>\n<p>Mrs Baines. Oh sir, don\u2019t try to be cynical: don\u2019t be ashamed of being a good man. The Lord will bless you abundantly; and our prayers will be like a strong fortification round you all the days of your life. [With a touch of caution] You will let me have the cheque to show at the meeting, won\u2019t you? Jenny: go in and fetch a pen and ink. [Jenny runs to the shelter door].<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft. Do not disturb Miss Hill: I have a fountain pen. [Jenny halts. He sits at the table and writes the cheque. Cusins rises to make more room for him. They all watch him silently].<\/p>\n<p>Bill [cynically, aside to Barbara, his voice and accent horribly debased] Wot prawce Selvytion nah?<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. Stop. [Undershaft stops writing: they all turn to her in surprise]. Mrs Baines: are you really going to take this money?<\/p>\n<p>Mrs Baines [astonished] Why not, dear?<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. Why not! Do you know what my father is? Have you forgotten that Lord Saxmundham is Bodger the whisky man? Do you remember how we implored the County Council to stop him from writing Bodger\u2019s Whisky in letters of fire against the sky; so that the poor drinkruined creatures on the embankment could not wake up from their snatches of sleep without being reminded of their deadly thirst by that wicked sky sign? Do you know that the worst thing I have had to fight here is not the devil, but Bodger, Bodger, Bodger, with his whisky, his distilleries, and his tied houses<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"A public house tied by agreement to obtain its supplies from a particular firm.\" id=\"return-footnote-311-35\" href=\"#footnote-311-35\" aria-label=\"Footnote 35\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[35]<\/sup><\/a>? Are you going to make our shelter another tied house for him, and ask me to keep it?<\/p>\n<p>Bill. Rotten drunken whisky it is too.<\/p>\n<p>Mrs Baines. Dear Barbara: Lord Saxmundham has a soul to be saved like any of us. If heaven has found the way to make a good use of his money, are we to set ourselves up against the answer to our prayers?<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. I know he has a soul to be saved. Let him come down here; and I\u2019ll do my best to help him to his salvation. But he wants to send his cheque down to buy us, and go on being as wicked as ever.<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft [with a reasonableness which Cusins alone perceives to be ironical] My dear Barbara: alcohol is a very necessary article. It heals the sick\u00a0\u2014<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. It does nothing of the sort.<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft. Well, it assists the doctor: that is perhaps a less questionable way of putting it. It makes life bearable to millions of people who could not endure their existence if they were quite sober. It enables Parliament to do things at eleven at night that no sane person would do at eleven in the morning. Is it Bodger\u2019s fault that this inestimable gift is deplorably abused by less than one per cent of the poor? [He turns again to the table; signs the cheque; and crosses it].<\/p>\n<p>Mrs Baines. Barbara: will there be less drinking or more if all those poor souls we are saving come to-morrow and find the doors of our shelters shut in their faces? Lord Saxmundham gives us the money to stop drinking \u2014 to take his own business from him.<\/p>\n<p>Cusins [impishly] Pure self-sacrifice on Bodger\u2019s part, clearly! Bless dear Bodger! [Barbara almost breaks down as Adolphus, too, fails her].<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft [tearing out the cheque and pocketing the book as he rises and goes past Cusins to Mrs Baines] I also, Mrs Baines, may claim a little disinterestedness. Think of my business! think of the widows and orphans! the men and lads torn to pieces with shrapnel and poisoned with lyddite<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"An explosive made from picric acid.\" id=\"return-footnote-311-36\" href=\"#footnote-311-36\" aria-label=\"Footnote 36\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[36]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0[Mrs Baines shrinks; but he goes on remorselessly]! the oceans of blood, not one drop of which is shed in a really just cause! the ravaged crops! the peaceful peasants forced, women and men, to till their fields under the fire of opposing armies on pain of starvation! the bad blood of the fierce little cowards at home who egg on others to fight for the gratification of their national vanity! All this makes money for me: I am never richer, never busier than when the papers are full of it. Well, it is your work to preach peace on earth and goodwill to men. [Mrs Baines\u2019s face lights up again]. Every convert you make is a vote against war. [Her lips move in prayer]. Yet I give you this money to help you to hasten my own commercial ruin. [He gives her the cheque].<\/p>\n<p>Cusins [mounting the form in an ecstasy of mischief] The millennium will be inaugurated by the unselfishness of Undershaft and Bodger. Oh be joyful! [He takes the drumsticks from his pockets and flourishes them].<\/p>\n<p>Mrs Baines [taking the cheque] The longer I live the more proof I see that there is an Infinite Goodness that turns everything to the work of salvation sooner or later. Who would have thought that any good could have come out of war and drink? And yet their profits are brought today to the feet of salvation to do its blessed work. [She is affected to tears].<\/p>\n<p>Jenny [running to Mrs Baines and throwing her arms round her] Oh dear! how blessed, how glorious it all is!<\/p>\n<p>Cusins [in a convulsion of irony] Let us seize this unspeakable moment. Let us march to the great meeting at once. Excuse me just an instant. [He rushes into the shelter. Jenny takes her tambourine from the drum head].<\/p>\n<p>Mrs Baines. Mr Undershaft: have you ever seen a thousand people fall on their knees with one impulse and pray? Come with us to the meeting. Barbara shall tell them that the Army is saved, and saved through you.<\/p>\n<p>Cusins [returning impetuously from the shelter with a flag and a trombone, and coming between Mrs Baines and Undershaft] You shall carry the flag down the first street, Mrs Baines [he gives her the flag]. Mr Undershaft is a gifted trombonist: he shall intone an Olympian diapason to the West Ham Salvation March. [Aside to Undershaft, as he forces the trombone on him] Blow, Machiavelli, blow.<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft [aside to him, as he takes the trombone] The trumpet in Zion<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"An allusion to Joel 2:1, \u201cBlow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain: let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the LORD cometh....\u201d\" id=\"return-footnote-311-37\" href=\"#footnote-311-37\" aria-label=\"Footnote 37\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[37]<\/sup><\/a>! [Cusins rushes to the drum, which he takes up and puts on. Undershaft continues, aloud] I will do my best. I could vamp a bass if I knew the tune.<\/p>\n<p>Cusins. It is a wedding chorus from one of Donizetti\u2019s operas; but we have converted it. We convert everything to good here, including Bodger. You remember the chorus. \u201cFor thee immense rejoicing \u2014 immenso giubilo \u2014 immenso giubilo.\u201d [With drum obbligato] Rum tum ti tum tum, tum tum ti ta\u00a0\u2014<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. Dolly: you are breaking my heart.<\/p>\n<p>Cusins. What is a broken heart more or less here? Dionysos Undershaft has descended. I am possessed.<\/p>\n<p>Mrs Baines. Come, Barbara: I must have my dear Major to carry the flag with me.<\/p>\n<p>Jenny. Yes, yes, Major darling.<\/p>\n<p>Cusins [snatches the tambourine out of Jenny\u2019s hand and mutely offers it to Barbara].<\/p>\n<p>Barbara [coming forward a little as she puts the offer behind her with a shudder, whilst Cusins recklessly tosses the tambourine back to Jenny and goes to the gate] I can\u2019t come.<\/p>\n<p>Jenny. Not come!<\/p>\n<p>Mrs Baines [with tears in her eyes] Barbara: do you think I am wrong to take the money?<\/p>\n<p>Barbara [impulsively going to her and kissing her] No, no: God help you, dear, you must: you are saving the Army. Go; and may you have a great meeting!<\/p>\n<p>Jenny. But arn\u2019t you coming?<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. No. [She begins taking off the silver brooch from her collar].<\/p>\n<p>Mrs Baines. Barbara: what are you doing?<\/p>\n<p>Jenny. Why are you taking your badge off? You can\u2019t be going to leave us, Major.<\/p>\n<p>Barbara [quietly] Father: come here.<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft [coming to her] My dear! [Seeing that she is going to pin the badge on his collar, he retreats to the penthouse in some alarm].<\/p>\n<p>Barbara [following him] Don\u2019t be frightened. [She pins the badge on and steps back towards the table, showing him to the others] There! It\u2019s not much for 5000 pounds is it?<\/p>\n<p>Mrs Baines. Barbara: if you won\u2019t come and pray with us, promise me you will pray for us.<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. I can\u2019t pray now. Perhaps I shall never pray again.<\/p>\n<p>Mrs Baines. Barbara!<\/p>\n<p>Jenny. Major!<\/p>\n<p>Barbara [almost delirious] I can\u2019t bear any more. Quick march!<\/p>\n<p>Cusins [calling to the procession in the street outside] Off we go. Play up, there! Immenso giubilo<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"From the wedding chorus in Lucia di Lammermoor by Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848).\" id=\"return-footnote-311-38\" href=\"#footnote-311-38\" aria-label=\"Footnote 38\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[38]<\/sup><\/a>. [He gives the time with his drum; and the band strikes up the march, which rapidly becomes more distant as the procession moves briskly away].<\/p>\n<p>Mrs Baines. I must go, dear. You\u2019re overworked: you will be all right tomorrow. We\u2019ll never lose you. Now Jenny: step out with the old flag. Blood and Fire! [She marches out through the gate with her flag].<\/p>\n<p>Jenny. Glory Hallelujah! [flourishing her tambourine and marching].<\/p>\n<p>Undershaft [to Cusins, as he marches out past him easing the slide of his trombone] \u201cMy ducats and my daughter\u201d<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"In The Merchant of Venice, 2.8.16, Shylock calls for justice after his daughter Jessica has taken his money and eloped with a Christian.\" id=\"return-footnote-311-39\" href=\"#footnote-311-39\" aria-label=\"Footnote 39\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[39]<\/sup><\/a>!<\/p>\n<p>Cusins [following him out] Money and gunpowder!<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. Drunkenness and Murder! My God: why hast thou forsaken me<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"The lament of the crucified Jesus (Matthew 27:46).\" id=\"return-footnote-311-40\" href=\"#footnote-311-40\" aria-label=\"Footnote 40\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[40]<\/sup><\/a>?<\/p>\n<p>She sinks on the form with her face buried in her hands. The march passes away into silence. Bill Walker steals across to her.<\/p>\n<p>Bill [taunting] Wot prawce Selvytion nah?<\/p>\n<p>Shirley. Don\u2019t you hit her when she\u2019s down.<\/p>\n<p>Bill. She it me wen aw wiz dahn. Waw shouldn\u2019t I git a bit o me own back?<\/p>\n<p>Barbara [raising her head] I didn\u2019t take your money, Bill. [She crosses the yard to the gate and turns her back on the two men to hide her face from them].<\/p>\n<p>Bill [sneering after her] Naow, it warn\u2019t enough for you. [Turning to the drum, he misses the money]. Ellow! If you ain\u2019t took it summun else az. Were\u2019s it gorn? Blame me if Jenny Ill didn\u2019t take it arter all!<\/p>\n<p>Rummy [screaming at him from the loft] You lie, you dirty blackguard! Snobby Price pinched it off the drum wen e took ap iz cap. I was ap ere all the time an see im do it.<\/p>\n<p>Bill. Wot! Stowl maw money! Waw didn\u2019t you call thief on him, you silly old mucker you?<\/p>\n<p>Rummy. To serve you aht for ittin me acrost the face. It\u2019s cost y\u2019pahnd, that az. [Raising a paean of squalid triumph] I done you. I\u2019m even with you. I\u2019ve ad it aht o y \u2014. [Bill snatches up Shirley\u2019s mug and hurls it at her. She slams the loft door and vanishes. The mug smashes against the door and falls in fragments].<\/p>\n<p>Bill [beginning to chuckle] Tell us, ole man, wot o\u2019clock this morrun was it wen im as they call Snobby Prawce was sived?<\/p>\n<p>Barbara [turning to him more composedly, and with unspoiled sweetness] About half past twelve, Bill. And he pinched your pound at a quarter to two. I know. Well, you can\u2019t afford to lose it. I\u2019ll send it to you.<\/p>\n<p>Bill [his voice and accent suddenly improving] Not if I was to starve for it. I ain\u2019t to be bought.<\/p>\n<p>Shirley. Ain\u2019t you? You\u2019d sell yourself to the devil for a pint o beer; ony there ain\u2019t no devil to make the offer.<\/p>\n<p>Bill [unshamed] So I would, mate, and often av, cheerful. But she cawn\u2019t buy me. [Approaching Barbara] You wanted my soul, did you? Well, you ain\u2019t got it.<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. I nearly got it, Bill. But we\u2019ve sold it back to you for ten thousand pounds.<\/p>\n<p>Shirley. And dear at the money!<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. No, Peter: it was worth more than money.<\/p>\n<p>Bill [salvationproof] It\u2019s no good: you cawn\u2019t get rahnd me nah. I don\u2019t blieve in it; and I\u2019ve seen today that I was right. [Going] So long, old soupkitchener! Ta, ta, Major Earl\u2019s Grendorter! [Turning at the gate] Wot prawce Selvytion nah? Snobby Prawce! Ha! ha!<\/p>\n<p>Barbara [offering her hand] Goodbye, Bill.<\/p>\n<p>Bill [taken aback, half plucks his cap off then shoves it on again defiantly] Git aht. [Barbara drops her hand, discouraged. He has a twinge of remorse]. But thet\u2019s aw rawt, you knaow. Nathink pasnl. Naow mellice. So long, Judy. [He goes].<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. No malice. So long, Bill.<\/p>\n<p>Shirley [shaking his head] You make too much of him, miss, in your innocence.<\/p>\n<p>Barbara [going to him] Peter: I\u2019m like you now. Cleaned out, and lost my job.<\/p>\n<p>Shirley. You\u2019ve youth an hope. That\u2019s two better than me. That\u2019s hope for you.<\/p>\n<p>Barbara. I\u2019ll get you a job, Peter, the youth will have to be enough for me. [She counts her money]. I have just enough left for two teas at Lockharts, a Rowton doss<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Lockharts, a chain of eating-houses in London; Rowton doss, a cheap hostel for working men, founded by Lord Rowton (1838-1903).\" id=\"return-footnote-311-41\" href=\"#footnote-311-41\" aria-label=\"Footnote 41\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[41]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0for you, and my tram and bus home. [He frowns and rises with offended pride. She takes his arm]. Don\u2019t be proud, Peter: it\u2019s sharing between friends. And promise me you\u2019ll talk to me and not let me cry. [She draws him towards the gate].<\/p>\n<p>Shirley. Well, I\u2019m not accustomed to talk to the like of you\u00a0\u2014<\/p>\n<p>Barbara [urgently] Yes, yes: you must talk to me. Tell me about Tom Paine\u2019s books and Bradlaugh<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Charles Bradlaugh (1833-1891), a British atheist and free-thinker.\" id=\"return-footnote-311-42\" href=\"#footnote-311-42\" aria-label=\"Footnote 42\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[42]<\/sup><\/a>\u2019s lectures. Come along.<\/p>\n<p>Shirley. Ah, if you would only read Tom Paine<a class=\"footnote\" title=\"Tom Paine (1737-1809), author of The Rights of Man (1791), a defense of the French Revolution, and The Age of Reason (1793), which offers rationalist critique of organized religion.\" id=\"return-footnote-311-43\" href=\"#footnote-311-43\" aria-label=\"Footnote 43\"><sup class=\"footnote\">[43]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0in the proper spirit, miss! [They go out through the gate together].<\/p>\n<hr class=\"before-footnotes clear\" \/><div class=\"footnotes\"><ol><li id=\"footnote-311-1\">Benches. <a href=\"#return-footnote-311-1\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 1\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-311-2\">After. <a href=\"#return-footnote-311-2\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 2\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-311-3\">Clever. <a href=\"#return-footnote-311-3\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 3\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-311-4\">Price was named after James Bronterre O\u2019Brien (1805-1964), an Irish journalist and Chartist leader. <a href=\"#return-footnote-311-4\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 4\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-311-5\">Chartism was a workng-class movement beginnng in 1837, whose six demands were listed in <em>The People\u2019s Charter<\/em> of 1838. Their demands included manhood suffrage, vote by ballot, and abolition of property qualification for MPs. <a href=\"#return-footnote-311-5\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 5\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-311-6\"><em>Romola<\/em> (1863). A novel by George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans). <a href=\"#return-footnote-311-6\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 6\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-311-7\">Gospelling, preaching. <a href=\"#return-footnote-311-7\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 7\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-311-8\">Skimmed milk. <a href=\"#return-footnote-311-8\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 8\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-311-9\">Jawing, talking. <a href=\"#return-footnote-311-9\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 9\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-311-10\">Hospital. Turned away by the hospitals. <a href=\"#return-footnote-311-10\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 10\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-311-11\">\u201cThe peace of God which passeth all understanding\u201d (Philippians 4:7). <a href=\"#return-footnote-311-11\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 11\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-311-12\">That is, have her out of the shelter. <a href=\"#return-footnote-311-12\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 12\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-311-13\">The name of Walker\u2019s girlfriend. Possibly Maude Havisham or Haversham. <a href=\"#return-footnote-311-13\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 13\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-311-14\">Horrocks, a cotton mill in Preston, Lancashire. <a href=\"#return-footnote-311-14\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 14\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-311-15\">Letter of reference. <a href=\"#return-footnote-311-15\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 15\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-311-16\">A road in Hackney, northeast London. <a href=\"#return-footnote-311-16\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 16\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-311-17\">A beating. <a href=\"#return-footnote-311-17\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 17\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-311-18\">A knacker\u2019s yard is a slaughterhouse for horses. <a href=\"#return-footnote-311-18\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 18\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-311-19\">An ethical system founded on natural morality and opposed to the tenets of revealed religion. <a href=\"#return-footnote-311-19\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 19\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-311-20\">Milk. <a href=\"#return-footnote-311-20\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 20\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-311-21\">13 stone = 13 x 14 pounds\u00a0plus 4, or 186 pounds. One stone is equal to 14 pounds. <a href=\"#return-footnote-311-21\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 21\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-311-22\">The law. <a href=\"#return-footnote-311-22\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 22\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-311-23\">Convincing. <a href=\"#return-footnote-311-23\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 23\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-311-24\">Chuck, stop. <a href=\"#return-footnote-311-24\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 24\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-311-25\">Greek god of wine, religious ecstasy, and theater. <a href=\"#return-footnote-311-25\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 25\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-311-26\">Wild, impetuous lyric in praise of Dionysos (Bacchus). <a href=\"#return-footnote-311-26\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 26\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-311-27\">From Euripides\u2019 play <em>The Bacchae<\/em> (405 BC). Shaw uses here the 1904 translation of his friend, the Australian-born classicist Gilbert Murray (1866-1957), upon whom he based the character Adolphus Cusins. <a href=\"#return-footnote-311-27\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 27\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-311-28\">Gen. William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, was originally a Methodist. Methodism was a reformist sect founded by John Wesley (1703-1791) from within the Church of England. <a href=\"#return-footnote-311-28\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 28\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-311-29\">A cheap-Jack is a travelling vendor of small wares, willing to take less than the price he first names. Mile End Waste is the market area of Mile End Road, London, the East End equivalent of Hyde Park Corner and place where William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army, gave his first open-air sermon. <a href=\"#return-footnote-311-29\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 29\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-311-30\">The devil who bought Faust\u2019s soul. Machiavelli (1469-1527), Italian statesman and author whose name came to suggest politicians who use deceit to accomplish their ends. <a href=\"#return-footnote-311-30\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 30\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-311-31\">Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver (Matthew 26:15). <a href=\"#return-footnote-311-31\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 31\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-311-32\">Trafalgar Square Demonstration and Riot, February 8, 1886. After meetings of two leftist organizations broke up in Trafalgar Square, a crowd of 5,000 people rushed into Pall Mall and St. James, smashing windows of the exclusive men\u2019s clubs nearby. <a href=\"#return-footnote-311-32\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 32\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-311-33\">Poor-relief fund originated by the Lord Mayor of London. Mansion House is the Lord Mayor\u2019s official residence. <a href=\"#return-footnote-311-33\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 33\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-311-34\">An invented title. <a href=\"#return-footnote-311-34\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 34\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-311-35\">A public house tied by agreement to obtain its supplies from a particular firm. <a href=\"#return-footnote-311-35\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 35\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-311-36\">An explosive made from picric acid. <a href=\"#return-footnote-311-36\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 36\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-311-37\">An allusion to Joel 2:1, \u201cBlow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain: let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the LORD cometh....\u201d <a href=\"#return-footnote-311-37\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 37\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-311-38\">From the wedding chorus in <em>Lucia di Lammermoor<\/em> by Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848). <a href=\"#return-footnote-311-38\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 38\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-311-39\">In <em>The Merchant of Venice<\/em>, 2.8.16, Shylock calls for justice after his daughter Jessica has taken his money and eloped with a Christian. <a href=\"#return-footnote-311-39\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 39\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-311-40\">The lament of the crucified Jesus (Matthew 27:46). <a href=\"#return-footnote-311-40\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 40\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-311-41\">Lockharts, a chain of eating-houses in London; Rowton doss, a cheap hostel for working men, founded by Lord Rowton (1838-1903). <a href=\"#return-footnote-311-41\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 41\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-311-42\">Charles Bradlaugh (1833-1891), a British atheist and free-thinker. <a href=\"#return-footnote-311-42\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 42\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><li id=\"footnote-311-43\">Tom Paine (1737-1809), author of <em>The Rights of Man<\/em> (1791), a defense of the French Revolution, and <em>The Age of Reason<\/em> (1793), which offers rationalist critique of organized religion. <a href=\"#return-footnote-311-43\" class=\"return-footnote\" aria-label=\"Return to footnote 43\">&crarr;<\/a><\/li><\/ol><\/div>","protected":false},"author":17,"menu_order":3,"template":"","meta":{"pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":["george-bernard-shaw"],"pb_section_license":"public-domain"},"chapter-type":[],"contributor":[61],"license":[78],"class_list":["post-311","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry","contributor-george-bernard-shaw","license-public-domain"],"part":306,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/englishliterature\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/englishliterature\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/englishliterature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/englishliterature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/englishliterature\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/311\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1910,"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/englishliterature\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/311\/revisions\/1910"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/englishliterature\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/306"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/englishliterature\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/311\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/englishliterature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/englishliterature\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=311"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/englishliterature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=311"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/englishliterature\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}