Act + 

I + 

An office in the royal palace. Two writing-tables face each other from opposite sides of the room, leaving plenty of room between them. Each table has a chair by it for visitors. The door is in the middle of the farthest wall. The clock shows that it is a little past 11; and the light is that of a fine summer morning. + 

Sempronius, smart and still presentably young, shows his right profile as he sits at one of the tables opening the King’s letters. + 

Pamphilius, middle aged, shows his left as he leans back in his chair at the other table with a pile of the morning papers at his elbow, reading one of them. This goes on silently for some time. Then Pamphilius, putting down his paper, looks at Sempronius for a moment before speaking. + 

Pamphilius + 

What was your father? + 

Sempronius + 

Startled. Eh? + 

Pamphilius + 

What was your father? + 

Sempronius + 

My father? + 

Pamphilius + 

Yes. What was he? + 

Sempronius + 

A Ritualist. + 

Pamphilius + 

I don’t mean his religion. I mean his profession. And his politics. + 

Sempronius + 

He was a Ritualist by profession, a Ritualist in politics, a Ritualist in religion: a raging emotional Die Hard Ritualist right down to his boots. + 

Pamphilius + 

Do you mean that he was a parson? + 

Sempronius + 

Not at all. He was a sort of spectacular artist. He got up pageants and Lord Mayors’ Shows and military tattoos and big public ceremonies and things like that. He arranged the last two coronations. That was how I got my job here in the palace. All our royal people knew him quite well: he was behind the scenes with them. + 

Pamphilius + 

Behind the scenes and yet believed they were all real! + 

Sempronius + 

Yes. Believed in them with all his soul. + 

Pamphilius + 

Although he manufactured them himself? + 

Sempronius + 

Certainly. Do you suppose a baker cannot believe sincerely in the sacrifice of the Mass or in holy communion because he has baked the consecrated wafer himself? + 

Pamphilius + 

I never thought of that. + 

Sempronius + 

My father might have made millions in the theatres and film studios. But he refused to touch them because the things they represented hadn’t really happened. He didn’t mind doing the christening of Queen Elizabeth in Shakespeare’s Henry the Eighth because that had really happened. It was a celebration of royalty. But not anything romantic: not though they offered him thousands. + 

Pamphilius + 

Did you ever ask him what he really thought about it all? But of course you didn’t: one can’t ask one’s father anything about himself. + 

Sempronius + 

My dear Pam: my father never thought. He didn’t know what thought meant. Very few people do, you know. He had vision: actual bodily vision, I mean; and he had an oddly limited sort of imagination. What I mean is that he couldn’t imagine anything he didn’t see; but he could imagine that what he did see was divine and holy and omniscient and omnipotent and eternal and everything that is impossible if only it looked splendid enough, and the organ was solemn enough, or the military bands brassy enough. + 

Pamphilius + 

You mean that he had to get everything from outside. + 

Sempronius + 

Exactly. He’d never have felt anything if he hadn’t had parents to feel about in his childhood, and a wife and babies to feel about when he grew up. He’d never have known anything if he hadn’t been taught at school. He couldn’t amuse himself: he had to pay oceans of money to other people to amuse him with all sorts of ghastly sports and pleasures that would have driven me into a monastery to escape from them. You see it was all ritual: he went to the Riviera every winter just as he went to church. + 

Pamphilius + 

By the way, is he alive? I should like to know him. + 

Sempronius + 

No. He died in 1962, of solitude. + 

Pamphilius + 

What do you mean? of solitude? + 

Sempronius + 

He couldn’t bear to be alone for a moment: it was death to him. Somebody had to be with him always. + 

Pamphilius + 

Oh well, come! That was friendly and kindly. It shows he had something inside him after all. + 

Sempronius + 

Not a bit. He never talked to his friends. He played cards with them. They never exchanged a thought. + 

Pamphilius + 

He must have been a rum old bird. + 

Sempronius + 

Not rum enough to be noticed. There are millions like him. + 

Pamphilius + 

But what about his dying of solitude? Was he imprisoned? + 

Sempronius + 

No. His yacht struck a reef and sank somewhere off the north of Scotland; and he managed to swim to an uninhabited island. All the rest were drowned; and he was not taken off for three weeks. When they found him he was melancholy mad, poor old boy; and he never got over it. Simply from having no one to play cards with, and no church to go to. + 

Pamphilius + 

My dear Sem: one isn’t alone on an uninhabited island. My mother used to stand me on the table and make me recite about it. + 

He declaims. + 

To sit on rocks; to muse o’er flood and fell; + 

To slowly trace the forest’s shady scene + 

Where things that own not man’s dominion dwell + 

And mortal foot hath ne’er or rarely been; + 

To climb the trackless mountain all unseen + 

With the wild flock that never needs a fold; + 

Alone o’er steeps and foaming falls to lean: + 

This is not solitude: ’tis but to hold + 

Converse with Nature’s charms, and view her stores unrolled. + 

Sempronius + 

Now you have hit the really funny thing about my father. All that about the lonely woods and the rest of it⁠—what you call Nature⁠—didn’t exist for him. It had to be something artificial to get at him. Nature to him meant nakedness; and nakedness only disgusted him. He wouldn’t look at a horse grazing in a field; but put splendid trappings on it and stick it into a procession and he just loved it. The same with men and women: they were nothing to him until they were dressed up in fancy costumes and painted and wigged and titled. To him the sacredness of the priest was the beauty of his vestment, the loveliness of women the dazzle of their jewels and robes, the charm of the countryside not in its hills and trees, nor in the blue smoke from its cottages in the winter evenings, but of its temples, palaces, mansions, park gates, and porticoed country houses. Think of the horror of that island to him! A void! a place where he was deaf and dumb and blind and lonely! If only there had been a peacock with its tail in full bloom it might have saved his reason; but all the birds were gulls; and gulls are not decorative. Our King could have lived there for thirty years with nothing but his own thoughts. You would have been all right with a fishing rod and a golf ball with a bag of clubs. I should have been as happy as a man in a picture gallery looking at the dawns and sunsets, the changing seasons, the continual miracle of life ever renewing itself. Who could be dull with pools in the rocks to watch? Yet my father, with all that under his nose, was driven mad by its nothingness. They say that where there is nothing the king loses his rights. My father found that where there is nothing a man loses his reason and dies. + 

Pamphilius + 

Let me add that in this palace, when the king’s letters are not ready for him at 12 o’clock, a secretary loses his job. + 

Sempronius + 

Hastily resuming his work. Yes, devil take you: why did you start me talking before I had finished my work? You have nothing to do but pretend to read the newspapers for him; and when you say “Nothing particular this morning, Sir,” all he says is “Thank Heaven!” But if I missed a note from one of his aunts inviting herself to tea, or a little line from Orinthia the Beloved marked “Strictly private and confidential: to be opened by His Majesty alone,” I should never hear the end of it. He had six love letters yesterday; and all he said when I told him was “Take them to the Queen.” He thinks they amuse her. I believe they make her as sick as they make me. + 

Pamphilius + 

Do Orinthia’s letters go to the Queen? + 

Sempronius + 

No, by George! Even I don’t read Orinthia’s letters. My instructions are to read everything; but I take care to forget to open hers. And I notice that I am not rebuked for my negligence. + 

Pamphilius + 

Thoughtfully. I suppose⁠— + 

Sempronius + 

Oh shut up, Pam. I shall never get through if you go on talking. + 

Pamphilius + 

I was only going to say that I suppose⁠— + 

Sempronius + 

Something about Orinthia. Don’t. If you indulge in supposition on that subject, you will lose your job, old chap. So stow it. + 

Pamphilius + 

Don’t cry out before Orinthia is hurt, young chap. I was going to say that I suppose you know that that bull-roarer Boanerges has just been taken into the Cabinet as President of the Board of Trade, and that he is coming here today to give the King a piece of his mind, or what he calls his mind, about the crisis. + 

Sempronius + 

What does the King care about the crisis? There has been a crisis every two months since he came to the throne; but he has always been too clever for them. He’ll turn Boanerges inside out after letting him roar the palace down. + 

Boanerges enters, dressed in a Russian blouse and peaked cap, which he keeps on. He is fifty, heavily built and aggressively self-assertive. + 

Boanerges + 

Look here. The King has an appointment with me at a quarter to twelve. How long more am I to be kept waiting? + 

Sempronius + 

With cheerful politeness. Good morning. Mr. Boanerges, I think. + 

Boanerges + 

Shortly, but a little taken aback. Oh, good morning to you. They say that politeness is the punctuality of kings⁠— + 

Sempronius + 

The other way about, Mr. Boanerges. Punctuality is the politeness of kings; and King Magnus is a model in that respect. Your arrival cannot have been announced to His Majesty. I will see about it. He hurries out. + 

Pamphilius + 

Be seated, Mr. Boanerges. + 

Boanerges + 

Seating himself by Pamphilius’s writing-table. A nice lot of young upstarts you have in this palace, Mr.⁠—? + 

Pamphilius + 

Pamphilius is my name. + 

Boanerges + 

Oh yes: I’ve heard of you. You’re one of the king’s private secretaries. + 

Pamphilius + 

I am. And what have our young upstarts been doing to you, Mr. Boanerges? + 

Boanerges + 

Well, I told one of them to tell the king I was here, and to look sharp about it. He looked at me as if I was a performing elephant, and took himself off after whispering to another flunkey. Then this other chap comes over to me and pretends he doesn’t know who I am! asks me can he have my name! “My lad,” I said: “not to know me argues yourself unknown. You know who I am as well as I do myself. Go and tell the king I’m waiting for him, d’ye see?” So he took himself off with a flea in his ear. I waited until I was fed up with it, and then opened the nearest door and came in here. + 

Pamphilius + 

Young rascals! However, my friend Mr. Sempronius will make it all right for you. + 

Boanerges + 

Oh: that was Sempronius, was it. I’ve heard of him too. + 

Pamphilius + 

You seem to have heard of all of us. You will be quite at home in the palace now that you are a Cabinet Minister. By the way, may I congratulate you on your appointment⁠—or rather congratulate the Cabinet on your accession? + 

Sempronius + 

Returning. The King. He goes to his table and takes the visitor’s chair in his hand, ready for the king’s instructions as to where to place it. + 

Pamphilius rises. Boanerges turns to the door in his chair without rising. King Magnus, a tallish studious looking gentleman of 45 or thereabouts, enters, and comes quickly down the middle of the room to Boanerges, proffering his hand cordially. + 

Magnus + 

You are very welcome to my little palace, Mr. Boanerges. Won’t you sit down? + 

Boanerges + 

I am sitting down. + 

Magnus + 

True, Mr. Boanerges. I had not noticed it. Forgive me: force of habit. + 

He indicates to Sempronius that he wishes to sit near Boanerges, on his right. Sempronius places the chair accordingly. + 

Magnus + 

You will allow me to be seated? + 

Boanerges + 

Oh, sit down, man, sit down. You’re in your own house: ceremony cuts no ice with me. + 

Magnus + 

Gratefully. Thank you. + 

The King sits. Pamphilius sits. Sempronius returns to his table and sits. + 

Magnus + 

It is a great pleasure to meet you at last, Mr. Boanerges. I have followed your career with interest ever since you contested Northampton twenty-five years ago. + 

Boanerges + 

Pleased and credulous. I should just think you have, King Magnus. I have made you sit up once or twice, eh? + 

Magnus + 

Smiling. Your voice has shaken the throne oftener than that. + 

Boanerges + 

Indicating the secretaries with a jerk of his head. What about these two? Are they to overhear everything that passes? + 

Magnus + 

My private secretaries. Do they incommode you? + 

Boanerges + 

Oh, they don’t incommode me. I am ready to have our talk out in Trafalgar Square if you like, or have it broadcast on the wireless. + 

Magnus + 

That would be a treat for my people, Mr. Boanerges. I am sorry we have not arranged for it. + 

Boanerges + 

Gathering himself together formidably. Yes; but do you realize that I am going to say things to you that have never been said to a king before? + 

Magnus + 

I am very glad indeed to hear it, Mr. Boanerges. I thought I had already heard everything that could be said to a king. I shall be grateful for the smallest novelty. + 

Boanerges + 

I warn you it won’t be agreeable. I am a plain man, Magnus: a very plain man. + 

Magnus + 

Not at all, I assure you⁠— + 

Boanerges + 

Indignantly. I was not alluding to my personal appearance. + 

Magnus + 

Gravely. Nor was I. Do not deceive yourself, Mr. Boanerges. You are very far from being a plain man. To me you have always been an Enigma. + 

Boanerges + 

Surprised and enormously flattered; he cannot help smiling with pleasure. Well, perhaps I am a bit of an enigma. Perhaps I am. + 

Magnus + 

Humbly. I wish I could see through you, Mr. Boanerges. But I have not your sort of cleverness. I can only ask you to be frank with me. + 

Boanerges + 

Now convinced that he has the upper hand. You mean about the crisis. Well, frank is just what I have come here to be. And the first thing I am going to tell you frankly about it is that this country has got to be governed, not by you, but by your ministers. + 

Magnus + 

I shall be only too grateful to them for taking a very difficult and thankless job off my hands. + 

Boanerges + 

But it’s not on your hands. It’s on your ministers’ hands. You are only a constitutional monarch. Do you know what they call that in Belgium? + 

Magnus + 

An india rubber stamp, I think. Am I right? + 

Boanerges + 

You are, King Magnus. An india rubber stamp. That’s what you have got to be; and don’t you forget it. + 

Magnus + 

Yes: that’s what we are most of the time: both of us. + 

Boanerges + 

Outraged. What do you mean? both of us? + 

Magnus + 

They bring us papers. We sign. You have no time to read them, luckily for you. But I am expected to read everything. I do not always agree; but I must sign: there is nothing else to be done. For instance, death warrants. Not only have I to sign the death warrants of persons who in my opinion ought not to be killed; but I may not even issue death warrants for a great many people who in my opinion ought to be killed. + 

Boanerges + 

Sarcastic. You’d like to be able to say “Off with his head!” wouldn’t you? + 

Magnus + 

Many men would hardly miss their heads, there is so little in them. Still, killing is a serious business: at least the person who is to be killed is usually conceited enough to think so. I think that if there were a question of killing me⁠— + 

Boanerges + 

Grimly. There may be, someday. I have heard it discussed. + 

Magnus + 

Oh, quite. I have not forgotten King Charles’s head. Well, I hope it will be settled by a living person and not by an india rubber stamp. + 

Boanerges + 

It will be settled by the Home Secretary, your duly constituted democratic minister. + 

Magnus + 

Another india rubber stamp, eh? + 

Boanerges + 

At present, perhaps. But not when I am Home Secretary, by Jingo! Nobody will make an india rubber stamp of Bill Boanerges: take that from me. + 

Magnus + 

Of course not. Is it not curious how people idealize their rulers? In the old days the king⁠—poor man!⁠—was a god, and was actually called God and worshipped as infallible and omniscient. That was monstrous⁠— + 

Boanerges + 

It was silly: just silly. + 

Magnus + 

But was it half so silly as our pretence that he is an india rubber stamp? The ancient Roman emperor-god had not infinite wisdom, infinite knowledge, infinite power; but he had some: perhaps even as much as his ministers. He was alive, not dead. What man has ever approached either a king or a minister and been able to pick him up from the table and use him as one picks up and uses a piece of wood and brass and rubber? Permanent officials of your department will try to pick you up and use you like that. Nineteen times out of twenty you will have to let them do it, because you cannot know everything; and even if you could you cannot do everything and be everywhere. But what about the twentieth time? + 

Boanerges + 

The twentieth time they will find they are up against Bill Boanerges, eh? + 

Magnus + 

Precisely. The india rubber stamp theory will not work, Mr. Boanerges. The old divine theory worked because there is a divine spark in us all; and the stupidest or worst monarch or minister, if not wholly god, is a bit of a god⁠—an attempt at a god⁠—however little the bit and unsuccessful the attempt. But the india rubber stamp theory breaks down in every real emergency, because no king or minister is the very least little bit like a stamp: he is a living soul. + 

Boanerges + 

A soul, eh? You kings still believe in that, I suppose. + 

Magnus + 

I find the word convenient: it is short and familiar. But if you dislike being called a soul, let us say that you are animate matter as distinguished from inanimate. + 

Boanerges + 

Not quite liking this. I think I’d rather you called me a soul, you know, if you must call me anything at all. I know I have too much matter about me: the doctor says I ought to knock off a stone or two; but there’s something more to me than beef. Call it a soul if you like; only not in a superstitious sense, if you understand me. + 

Magnus + 

Perfectly. So you see, Mr. Boanerges, that though we have been dealing with one another for less than ten minutes, you have already led me into an intellectual discussion which shows that we are something more than a pair of india rubber stamps. You are up against my brains, such as they are. + 

Boanerges + 

And you are up against mine. + 

Magnus + 

Gallantly. There can be no doubt of that. + 

Boanerges + 

Grinning. Such as they are, eh? + 

Magnus + 

It is not for me to make that qualification, except in my own case. Besides, you have given your proofs. No common man could have risen as you have done. As for me, I am a king because I was the nephew of my uncle, and because my two elder brothers died. If I had been the stupidest man in the country I should still be its king. I have not won my position by my merits. If I had been born as you were in the⁠—in the⁠— + 

Boanerges + 

In the gutter. Out with it. Picked up by a policeman at the foot of Captain Coram’s statue. Adopted by the policeman’s grandmother, bless her! + 

Magnus + 

Where should I have been if the policeman had picked me up? + 

Boanerges + 

Ah! Where? Not, mind you, that you mightn’t have done pretty well for yourself. You’re no fool, Magnus: I will say that for you. + 

Magnus + 

You flatter me. + 

Boanerges + 

Flatter a king! Never. Not Bill Boanerges. + 

Magnus + 

Yes, yes: everybody flatters the King. But everybody has not your tact, and, may I say? your good nature. + 

Boanerges + 

Beaming with self-satisfaction. Perhaps not. Still, I am a Republican, you know. + 

Magnus + 

That is what has always surprised me. Do you really think that any man should have as much personal power as the presidents of the republican States have? Ambitious kings envy them. + 

Boanerges + 

What’s that? I don’t follow that. + 

Magnus + 

Smiling. You cannot humbug me, Mr. Boanerges. I see why you are a Republican. If the English people send me packing and establish a republic, no man has a better chance of being the first British president than you. + 

Boanerges + 

Almost blushing. Oh! I don’t say that. + 

Magnus + 

Come come! You know it as well as I do. Well, if it happens you will have ten times more power than I have ever had. + 

Boanerges + 

Not quite convinced. How can that be? You’re King. + 

Magnus + 

And what is the King? An idol set up by a group of plutocrats so that they can rule the country with the King as their scapegoat and puppet. Presidents, now, are chosen by the people, who always want a Strong Man to protect them against the rich. + 

Boanerges + 

Well, speaking as a bit of a Strong Man myself, there may be something in that. But honestly, Magnus, as man to man, do you tell me you’d rather be a president than what you are? + 

Magnus + 

By no means. You wouldn’t believe me if I did; and you would be quite right. You see, my security is very comfortable. + 

Boanerges + 

Security, eh? You admitted just now that even a modest individual like myself had given your throne a shake or two. + 

Magnus + 

True. You are quite right to remind me of it. I know that the monarchy may come to an end at any moment. But while the monarchy lasts⁠—while it lasts, mark you⁠—I am very secure. I escape the dreadful and demoralizing drudgery of electioneering. I have no voters to please. Ministers come and ministers go; but I go on forever. The terrible precariousness of your position⁠— + 

Boanerges + 

What’s that? How is my position precarious? + 

Magnus + 

The vote may go against you. Yours is a Trade Union seat, is it not? If the Hydroelectric Workers Federation throw you over, where would you be? + 

Boanerges + 

Confidently. They won’t throw me over. You don’t know the workers, Magnus: you have never been a worker. + 

Magnus + 

Lifts his eyebrows. ! + 

Boanerges + 

Continuing. No king on earth is as safe in his job as a Trade Union Official. There is only one thing that can get him sacked; and that is drink. Not even that, as long as he doesn’t actually fall down. I talk democracy to these men and women. I tell them that they have the vote, and that theirs is the kingdom and the power and the glory. I say to them “You are supreme: exercise your power.” They say, “That’s right: tell us what to do”; and I tell them. I say “Exercise your vote intelligently by voting for me.” And they do. That’s democracy; and a splendid thing it is too for putting the right men in the right place. + 

Magnus + 

Magnificent! I have never heard it better described. You certainly have a head on you, Mr. Boanerges. You should write an essay on democracy. But⁠— + 

Boanerges + 

But what? + 

Magnus + 

Suppose a man with a bigger voice comes along! Some fool! Some windbag! Some upstart with a platform trick of gulling the multitude! + 

Boanerges + 

You’re thinking of Iky Jacobus? He is only a talker. Snapping his fingers. I don’t give that for him. + 

Magnus + 

I never even heard of Mr. Jacobus. But why do you say “only a talker.” Talkers are very formidable rivals for popular favor. The multitude understands talk: it does not understand work. I mean brain work, like yours and mine. + 

Boanerges + 

That’s true. But I can talk Iky’s head off. + 

Magnus + 

Lucky man: you have all the trumps in your hand. But I, who cannot pretend to your gifts, am very glad that Iky cannot upset me as long as I am the nephew of my uncle. + 

A young lady, dressed for walking, rushes in impetuously. + 

The Young Lady + 

Papa: I cannot find the address⁠— + 

Magnus + 

Cutting her short. No, no, no, dear: not now. Go away. Don’t you see that I am particularly engaged with the President of the Board of Trade? You must excuse my unruly daughter, Mr. Boanerges. May I present her to you? Alice, my eldest girl. Mr. Boanerges, dear. + 

Alice + 

Oh! Are you the great Mr. Boanerges? + 

Boanerges + 

Rising in a glow of gratification. Well, I don’t call myself that, you know. But I believe the expression is in use, as you might say. I am very pleased indeed to make the acquaintance of the Princess Royal. + 

They shake hands. + 

Alice + 

Why do you wear such awful clothes, Mr. Boanerges? + 

Magnus + 

Remonstrating. My dear⁠—! + 

Alice + 

Continuing. I can’t go out walking with you in that. Pointing to his blouse. + 

Boanerges + 

The uniform of Labor, your Royal Highness. I’m proud of it. + 

Alice + 

Oh yes, I know all that, Mr. Boanerges. But you don’t look the part, you know. Anyone can see that you belong naturally to the governing class. + 

Boanerges + 

Struck by this view. In a way, perhaps. But I have earned my bread by my hands. Not as a laborer, though. I am a skilled mechanic, or was until my country called on me to lead it. + 

Magnus + 

To Alice. Well, my dear, you have broken up a most interesting conversation, and to me a most instructive one. It’s no use our trying to go on, Mr. Boanerges: I must go and find what my daughter wants, though I strongly suspect that what she really came in for was to see my wonderful new minister. We shall meet again presently: you know that the Prime Minister is calling on me today with some of his colleagues⁠—including, I hope, yourself⁠—to discuss the crisis. Taking Alice’s arm and turning towards the door. You will excuse us, won’t you? + 

Boanerges + 

Graciously. Oh, that’s all right. That’s quite all right. + 

The King and the Princess go out, apparently much pleased. + 

Boanerges + 

To Sempronius and Pamphilius comprehensively. Well, say what you will, the King is no fool. Not when you know how to handle him. + 

Pamphilius + 

Of course, that makes all the difference. + 

Boanerges + 

And the girl hasn’t been spoilt. I was glad to see that. She doesn’t seem to know that she is the Princess Royal, eh? + 

Sempronius + 

Well, she wouldn’t dream of giving herself any airs with you. + 

Boanerges + 

What! Isn’t she always like that? + 

Sempronius + 

Oh no. It’s not everybody who is received as you have been. I hope you have enjoyed your visit. + 

Boanerges + 

Well, I pulled Magnus through it pretty well: eh? Don’t you think so? + 

Sempronius + 

He was pleased. You have a way with him, Mr. President. + 

Boanerges + 

Well, perhaps I have, perhaps I have. + 

A bevy of five Cabinet Ministers, resplendent in diplomatic uniforms, enters. Proteus the Prime Minister has on his left, Pliny, Chancellor of the Exchequer, good-humored and conciliatory, and Nicobar, Foreign Secretary, snaky and censorious. On his right Crassus, Colonial Secretary, elderly and anxious, and Balbus, Home Secretary, rude and thoughtless. + 

Balbus + 

Holy snakes! look at Bill. To Boanerges. Go home and dress yourself properly, man. + 

Nicobar + 

Where do you think you are? + 

Crassus + 

Who do you think you are? + 

Pliny + 

Fingering the blouse. Where did you buy it, Bill? + 

Boanerges + 

Turning on them like a baited bear. Well, if you come to that, who do you think you are, the lot of you? + 

Proteus + 

Conciliatory. Never mind them, Bill: they’re jealous because they didn’t think of it themselves. How did you get on with the King? + 

Boanerges + 

Right as rain, Joe. You leave the King to me. I know how to handle him. If I’d been in the Cabinet these last three months there’d have been no crisis. + 

Nicobar + 

He put you through it, did he? + 

Boanerges + 

What do you mean? put me through it? Is this a police office? + 

Pliny + 

The third degree is not unknown in this palace, my boy. To Pamphilius. Did the matron take a hand? + 

Pamphilius + 

No. But the Princess Alice happened to drop in. She was greatly impressed by the President. + 

They all laugh uproariously at Boanerges. + 

Boanerges + 

What in hell are you laughing at? + 

Proteus + 

Take no notice of them, Bill: they are only having their bit of fun with you as a newcomer. Come, lads! enough of fooling: lets get to business. He takes the chair vacated by the King. + 

Sempronius and Pamphilius at once rise and go out busily, taking some of their papers with them. Pliny takes Boanerges’ chair, Balbus that of Sempronius, Boanerges that of Pamphilius, whilst Nicobar and Crassus take chairs from the wall and sit down at the ends of the writing tables, left and right of the Prime Minister respectively. + 

Proteus + 

Now to start with, do you chaps all fully realize that though we wiped out every other party at the last election, and have been in power for the last three years, this country has been governed during that time by the King? + 

Nicobar + 

I don’t see that. We⁠— + 

Proteus + 

Impatiently. Well, if you don’t, then for Heaven’s sake either resign and get out of the way of men who can see facts and look them in the face, or else take my job and lead the party yourself. + 

Nicobar + 

The worst of you is that you won’t face the fact that though you’re Prime Minister you’re not God Almighty. The king can’t do anything except what we advise him to do. How can he govern the country if we have all the power and he has none? + 

Boanerges + 

Don’t talk silly, Nick. This india rubber stamp theory doesn’t work. What man has ever approached a king or a minister and been able to pick him up from the table and use him as you’d use a bit of wood and brass and rubber? The King’s a live man; and what more are you, with your blessed advice? + 

Pliny + 

Hullo, Bill! You have been having your mind improved by somebody. + 

Boanerges + 

What do you mean? Isn’t it what I have always said? + 

Proteus + 

Whose nerves are on edge. Oh, will you stop squabbling. What are we going to say to the King when he comes in? If you will only hold together and say the same thing⁠—or let me say it⁠—he must give way. But he is as artful as the very devil. He’ll have a pin to stick into the seat of every man of you. If you all start quarrelling and scolding and bawling, which is just what he wants you to do, it will end in his having his own way as usual, because one man that has a mind and knows it can always beat ten men who haven’t and don’t. + 

Pliny + 

Steady, Prime Minister. You’re overwrought. + 

Proteus + 

It’s enough to drive a man mad. I am sorry. + 

Pliny + 

Changing the subject. Where’s Mandy? + 

Nicobar + 

And Lizzie? + 

Proteus + 

Late as usual. Come! Business, business, business. + 

Boanerges + 

Thunderously. Order order! + 

Proteus + 

The King is working the Press against us. The King is making speeches. Things have come to a head. He said yesterday on the opening of the new Chamber of Commerce building that the king’s veto is the only remaining defence of the people against corrupt legislation. + 

Boanerges + 

So it is, by Jingo. What other defence is there? Democracy? Yah! We know what Democracy is worth. What we need is a Strong Man. + 

Nicobar + 

Sneering. Yourself for instance. + 

Boanerges + 

I should stand a better chance than you, my lad, if we were a Republic, and the people could choose. And let me tell you that a republican president has more power than a king because the people know that they need a Strong Man to protect them against the rich. + 

Proteus + 

Flinging himself back in his chair in desperation. This is a nice thing. Two Labor papers have leading articles this morning supporting the King; and the latest addition to the Cabinet here is a King’s man. I resign. + 

General consternation except on the part of Nicobar, who displays cheerful unconcern, and of Boanerges, who squares himself with an iron face. + 

Pliny + 

No: don’t do that, Joe. + 

Balbus + 

What! Now! You can’t. You mustn’t. + 

Crassus + 

Of course not. Out of the question. + 

Proteus + 

No use. Rising. I resign, I tell you. You can all go to the devil. I have lost my health, and almost lost my reason, trying to keep this Cabinet together in the face of the cunningest enemy popular government has ever had to face. I have had enough of it. Sitting down again. I resign. + 

Crassus + 

But not at such a moment as this. Don’t let us swap horses when crossing a stream. + 

Nicobar + 

Why not, if the horse you have got is subject to hysterics? + 

Boanerges + 

Not to mention that you may have more than one horse at your disposal. + 

Proteus + 

Right you are. Perfectly true. Take my job, Nick. It’s vacant for you, Bill. I wish you joy of it. + 

Pliny + 

Now boys, boys, boys: be good. We can’t make a new Cabinet before Magnus comes in. You have something in your pocket, Joe. Out with it. Read it to them. + 

Proteus + 

Taking a paper from his pocket. What I was going to propose⁠—and you can take it or leave it⁠—is an ultimatum. + 

Crassus + 

Good! + 

Proteus + 

Either he signs this, or⁠—He pauses significantly.⁠—! + 

Nicobar + 

Or what? + 

Proteus + 

Disgusted. Oh, you make me sick. + 

Nicobar + 

You’re sick already, by your own account. I only ask, suppose he refuses to sign your ultimatum? + 

Proteus + 

You call yourself a Cabinet Minister, and you can’t answer that! + 

Nicobar + 

No I can’t. I press my question. You said he must sign, or. I ask, or what? + 

Proteus + 

Or we resign and tell the country that we can’t carry on the King’s Government under conditions which destroy our responsibility. + 

Balbus + 

That’ll do it. He couldn’t face that. + 

Crassus + 

Yes: that’ll bunker him. + 

Proteus + 

Is that agreed? + 

Pliny + 

Crassus + 

Balbus + 

Yes, yes, yes, ’greed ’greed ’greed. + 

Boanerges + 

I retain an open mind. Let us hear the ultimatum. + 

Nicobar + 

Yes: lets hear it. + 

Proteus + 

Memorandum of understanding arrived at⁠— + 

The King enters, with Amanda, Postmistress General, a merry lady in uniform like the men, on his left, and Lysistrata, Powermistress General, a grave lady in academic robes, on his right. All rise. The Prime Minister’s face darkens. + 

Magnus + 

Welcome, gentlemen. I hope I am not too early. Noting the Prime Minister’s scowl. Am I intruding? + 

Proteus + 

I protest. It is intolerable. I call a conference of my Cabinet to consider our position in regard to the prerogative; and I find the two lady members, the Postmistress General and the Powermistress General, closeted with your Majesty instead of being in their places to confer with me. + 

Lysistrata + 

You mind your own business, Joe. + 

Magnus + 

Oh no: really, really, my dear Lysistrata, you must not take that line. Our business is to meddle in everybody’s business. A Prime Minister is a busybody by profession. So is a monarch. So are we all. + 

Lysistrata + 

Well, they say everybody’s business is nobody’s business, which is just what Joe is fit for. She takes a chair from the wall with a powerful hand, and swings it forward to the inside corner of Sempronius’s table, where she stands waiting for the King to sit down. + 

Proteus + 

This is what I have to put up with when I am on the verge of a nervous breakdown. He sits down distractedly, and buries his face in his hands. + 

Amanda + 

Going to him and petting him. Come, Joe! don’t make a scene. You asked for it, you know. + 

Nicobar + 

What do you go provoking Lizzie for like that? You know she has a temper. + 

Lysistrata + 

There is nothing whatever wrong with my temper. But I am not going to stand any of Joe’s nonsense; and the sooner he makes up his mind to that the smoother our proceedings are likely to be. + 

Boanerges + 

I protest. I say, let us be dignified. I say, let us respect ourselves and respect the throne. All this Joe and Bill and Nick and Lizzie: we might as well be hobnobbing in a fried fish shop. The Prime Minister is the prime minister: he isn’t Joe. The Powermistress isn’t Lizzie: she’s Lysis Traitor. + 

Lysistrata + 

Who has evidently been a schoolmistress. Certainly not, Bill. She is Ly Sistrata. You had better say Lizzie: it is easier to pronounce. + 

Boanerges + 

Scornfully. Ly Sistrata! A more foolish affectation I never heard: you might as well call me Bo Annerjeeze. He flings himself into his chair. + 

Magnus + 

Sweetly. Shall we sit, ladies and gentlemen! + 

Boanerges hastily rises and sits down again. The King sits in Pliny’s chair. Lysistrata and the rest of the men resume their seats, leaving Pliny and Amanda standing. Amanda takes an empty chair in each hand and plants them side by side between the King and the table of Pamphilius. + 

Amanda + 

There you are, Plin. She sits next the table. + 

Pliny + 

Ta ta, Mandy. Pardon me: I should have said Amanda. He sits next to the King. + 

Amanda + 

Don’t mention it, darling. + 

Boanerges + 

Order, order! + 

Amanda + 

Waves him a kiss. !! + 

Magnus + 

Prime Minister: the word is with you. Why have you all simultaneously given me the great pleasure of exercising your constitutional right of access to the sovereign? + 

Lysistrata + 

Have I that right, sir; or haven’t I? + 

Magnus + 

Most undoubtedly you have. + 

Lysistrata + 

You hear that, Joe? + 

Proteus + 

I⁠— + 

Balbus + 

Oh for Heaven’s sake don’t contradict her, Joe. We shall never get anywhere at this rate. Come to the crisis. + 

Together. + 

Nicobar + 

Yes yes: the crisis! + 

Crassus + 

Yes yes: come along! + 

Pliny + 

The crisis: out with it! + 

Balbus + 

The ultimatum. Lets have the ultimatum. + 

Magnus + 

Oh, there is an ultimatum! I gathered from yesterday’s evening papers that there is a crisis⁠—another crisis. But the ultimatum is new to me. To Proteus. Have you an ultimatum? + 

Proteus + 

Your Majesty’s allusion to the royal veto in a speech yesterday has brought matters to a head. + 

Magnus + 

It was perhaps indelicate. But you all allude so freely to your own powers⁠—to the supremacy of Parliament and the voice of the people and so forth⁠—that I fear I have lost any little delicacy I ever possessed. If you may flourish your thunderbolts why may I not shoulder my little popgun of a veto and strut up and down with it for a moment? + 

Nicobar + 

This is not a subject for jesting⁠— + 

Magnus + 

Interrupting him quickly. I am not jesting, Mr. Nicobar. But I am certainly trying to discuss our differences in a good-humored manner. Do you wish me to lose my temper and make scenes? + 

Amanda + 

Oh please no, your Majesty. We get enough of that from Joe. + 

Proteus + 

I pro⁠— + 

Magnus + 

His hand persuasively on the Prime Minister’s arm. Take care, Prime Minister: take care: do not let your wily Postmistress General provoke you to supply the evidence against yourself. + 

All the rest laugh. + 

Proteus + 

Coolly. I thank your Majesty for the caution. The Postmistress General has never forgiven me for not making her First Lady of the Admiralty. She has three nephews in the navy. + 

Amanda + 

Oh you⁠—She swallows the epithet, and contents herself with shaking her fist at the Premier. + 

Magnus + 

Tch-tch-tch! Gently, Amanda, gently. Three very promising lads: they do you credit. + 

Amanda + 

I never wanted them to go to sea. I could have found them better jobs in the Post Office. + 

Magnus + 

Apart from Amanda’s family relations, am I face to face with a united Cabinet. + 

Pliny + 

No, sir. You are face to face with a squabbling Cabinet; but, on the constitutional question, united we stand: divided we fall. + 

Balbus + 

That is so. + 

Nicobar + 

Hear hear! + 

Magnus + 

What is the constitutional question? Do you deny the royal veto? or do you object only to my reminding my subjects of its existence? + 

Nicobar + 

What we say is that the king has no right to remind his subjects of anything constitutional except by the advice of the Prime Minister, and in words which he has read and approved. + 

Magnus + 

Which Prime Minister? There are so many of them in the Cabinet. + 

Boanerges + 

There! Serves you all right! Aren’t you ashamed of yourselves? But I am not surprised, Joseph Proteus. I own I like a Prime Minister that knows how to be a Prime Minister. Why do you let them take the word out of your mouth every time? + 

Proteus + 

If His Majesty wants a Cabinet of dumb dogs he will not get it from my party. + 

Balbus + 

Hear, hear, Joe! + 

Magnus + 

Heaven forbid! The variety of opinion in the Cabinet is always most instructive and interesting. Who is to be its spokesman today? + 

Proteus + 

I know your Majesty’s opinion of me; but let⁠— + 

Magnus + 

Before he can proceed. Let me state it quite frankly. My opinion of you is that no man knows better than you when to speak and when to let others speak for you; when to make scenes and threaten resignation; and when to be as cool as a cucumber. + 

Proteus + 

Not altogether displeased. Well, sir, I hope I am not such a fool as some fools think me. I may not always keep my temper. You would not be surprised at that if you knew how much temper I have to keep. He straightens up and becomes impressively eloquent. At this moment my cue is to show you, not my own temper, but the temper of my Cabinet. What the Foreign Secretary and the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Home Secretary have told you is true. If we are to carry on your government we cannot have you making speeches that express your own opinions and not ours. We cannot have you implying that everything that is of any value in our legislation is your doing and not ours. We cannot have you telling people that their only safeguard against the political encroachments of big business whilst we are doing nothing but bungling and squabbling is your power of veto. It has got to stop, once for all. + 

Balbus + 

Nicobar + 

Hear hear! + 

Proteus + 

Is that clear? + 

Magnus + 

Far clearer than I have ever dared to make it, Mr. Proteus. Except, by the way, on one point. When you say that all this of which you complain must cease once for all, do you mean that henceforth I am to agree with you or you with me? + 

Proteus + 

I mean that when you disagree with us you are to keep your disagreement to yourself. + 

Magnus + 

That would be a very heavy responsibility for me. If I see you leading the nation over the edge of a precipice may I not warn it? + 

Balbus + 

It is our business to warn it, not yours. + 

Magnus + 

Suppose you don’t do your business! Suppose you don’t see the danger! That has happened. It may happen again. + 

Crassus + 

Insinuating. As democrats, I think we are bound to proceed on the assumption that such a thing cannot happen. + 

Boanerges + 

Rot! It’s happening all the time until somebody has the gumption to put his foot down and stop it. + 

Crassus + 

Yes: I know. But that is not democracy. + 

Boanerges + 

Democracy be⁠—He leaves the word unspoken. ! I have thirty years experience of democracy. So have most of you. I say no more. + 

Balbus + 

Wages are too high, if you ask me. Anybody can earn from five to twenty pounds a week now, and a big dole when there is no job for him. And what Englishman will give his mind to politics as long as he can afford to keep a motor car? + 

Nicobar + 

How many voted at the last election? Not seven percent of the register. + 

Balbus + 

Yes; and the seven percent were only a parcel of sillies playing at ins and outs. To make democracy work in Crassus’s way we need poverty and hardship. + 

Proteus + 

Emphatically. And we have abolished poverty and hardship. That is why the people trust us. To the King. And that is why you will have to give way to us. We have the people of England in comfort⁠—solid middle class comfort⁠—at our backs. + 

Magnus + 

No: we have not abolished poverty and hardship. Our big business men have abolished them. But how? By sending our capital abroad to places where poverty and hardship still exist: in other words, where labor is cheap. We live in comfort on the imported profits of that capital. We are all ladies and gentlemen now. + 

Nicobar + 

Well, what more do you want? + 

Pliny + 

You surely don’t grudge us our wonderful prosperity, sir. + 

Magnus + 

I want it to last. + 

Nicobar + 

Why shouldn’t it last? Rising. Own the truth. You had rather have the people poor, and pose as their champion and savior, than have to admit that the people are better off under our government⁠—under our squabbling and bungling, as you call it. + 

Magnus + 

No: it was the Prime Minister who used those expressions. + 

Nicobar + 

Don’t quibble: he was quoting them from your reptile press. What I say is that we stand for high wages, and you are always belittling and opposing the men that pay them. Well, the voters like high wages. They know when they are well off; and they don’t know what you are grumbling about; and that’s what will beat you every time you try to stir them against us. He resumes his seat. + 

Pliny + 

There is no need to rub it in like that, Nick. We’re all good friends. Nobody objects to prosperity. + 

Magnus + 

You think this prosperity is safe? + 

Nicobar + 

Safe! + 

Pliny + 

Oh come, sir! Really! + 

Balbus + 

Safe! Look at my constituency: Northeast-by-north Birmingham, with its four square miles of confectionery works! Do you know that in the Christmas cracker trade Birmingham is the workshop of the world? + 

Crassus + 

Take Gateshead and Middlesbrough alone! Do you know that there has not been a day’s unemployment there for five years past, and that their daily output of chocolate creams totals up to twenty thousand tons? + 

Magnus + 

It is certainly a consoling thought that if we were peacefully blockaded by the League of Nations we could live for at least three weeks on our chocolate creams. + 

Nicobar + 

You needn’t sneer at the sweets: we turn out plenty of solid stuff. Where will you find the equal of the English golf club? + 

Balbus + 

Look at the potteries: the new crown Derby! the new Chelsea! Look at the tapestries! Why, Greenwich Goblin has chased the French stuff out of the market. + 

Crassus + 

Don’t forget our racing motor boats and cars, sir: the finest on earth, and all individually designed. No cheap mass production stuff there. + 

Pliny + 

And our livestock! Can you beat the English polo pony? + 

Amanda + 

Or the English parlormaid? She wins in all the international beauty shows. + 

Pliny + 

Now Mandy, Mandy! None of your triviality. + 

Magnus + 

I am not sure that the British parlormaid is not the only real asset in your balance sheet. + 

Amanda + 

Triumphant. Aha! To Pliny. You go home to bed and reflect on that, old man. + 

Proteus + 

Well, sir? Are you satisfied that we have the best paid proletariat in the world on our side? + 

Magnus + 

Gravely. I dread revolution. + 

All except the two women laugh uproariously at this. + 

Boanerges + 

I must join them there, sir. I am as much against chocolate creams as you are: they never agree with me. But a revolution in England!!! Put that out of your head, sir. Not if you were to tear up Magna Carta in Trafalgar Square, and light the fires of Smithfield to burn every member of the House of Commons. + 

Magnus + 

I was not thinking of a revolution in England. I was thinking of the countries on whose tribute we are living. Suppose it occurs to them to stop paying it! That has happened before. + 

Pliny + 

Oh no, sir: no, no, no. What would become of their foreign trade with us? + 

Magnus + 

At a pinch, I think they could do without the Christmas crackers. + 

Crassus + 

Oh, that’s childish. + 

Magnus + 

Children in their innocence are sometimes very practical, Mr. Colonial Secretary. The more I see of the sort of prosperity that comes of your leaving our vital industries to big business men as long as they keep your constituents quiet with high wages, the more I feel as if I were sitting on a volcano. + 

Lysistrata + 

Who has been listening with implacable contempt to the discussion, suddenly breaks in in a sepulchral contralto. Hear hear! My department was perfectly able and ready to deal with the supply of power from the tides in the north of Scotland, and you gave it away, like the boobs you are, to the Pentland Firth Syndicate: a gang of foreign capitalists who will make billions out of it at the people’s expense while we are bungling and squabbling. Crassus worked that. His uncle is chairman. + 

Crassus + 

A lie. A flat lie. He is not related to me. He is only my stepson’s father-in-law. + 

Balbus + 

I demand an explanation of the words bungling and squabbling. We have had quite enough of them here today. Who are you getting at? It was not I who bungled the Factory Bill. I found it on my desk when I took office, with all His Majesty’s suggestions in the margin; and you know it. + 

Proteus + 

Have you all done playing straight into His Majesty’s hand, and making my situation here impossible? + 

Guilty silence. + 

Proteus + 

Proceeding deliberately and authoritatively. The question before us is not one of our manners and our abilities. His Majesty will not press that question, because if he did he would oblige us to raise the question of his own morals. + 

Magnus + 

Starts. What! + 

Balbus + 

Good, Joe! + 

Crassus + 

Aside to Amanda. That’s got him. + 

Magnus + 

Am I to take that threat seriously, Mr. Proteus? + 

Proteus + 

If you try to prejudice what is a purely constitutional question by personal scandal, it will be easy enough for us to throw your mud back. In this conflict we are the challengers. You have the choice of weapons. If you choose scandal, we’ll take you on at that. Personally I shall deplore it if you do. No good will come of washing our dirty linen in public. But don’t make any mistake as to what will happen. I will be plain with you: I will dot the i’s and cross the t’s. You will say that Crassus is a jobber. + 

Crassus + 

Springing up. I⁠— + 

Proteus + 

Fiercely crushing him. Sit down. Leave this to me. + 

Crassus + 

Sits. I a jobber! Well! + 

Proteus + 

Continuing. You will say that I should never have given the Home Office to a bully like Balbus⁠— + 

Balbus + 

Intimidated by the fate of Crassus, but unable to forbear a protest. Look here, Joe⁠— + 

Proteus + 

You shut up, Bert. It’s true. + 

Balbus + 

Subsides with a shrug. ! + 

Proteus + 

Well, what will happen? There will be no denials, no excuses, no vindications. We shall not fall into that trap, clever as you are at setting it. Crassus will say just simply that you are a freethinker. And Balbus will say that you are a libertine. + 

The Male Cabinet + 

Below their breaths. Aha‑a‑a‑a‑h!!! + 

Proteus + 

Now, King Magnus! Our cards are on the table. What have you to say? + 

Magnus + 

Admirably put! People ask how it is that with all these strong characters around you hold your own as the only possible Prime Minister, in spite of your hysterics and tantrums, your secretiveness and your appalling laziness⁠— + 

Balbus + 

Delighted. Hear hear! You’re getting it now, Joe. + 

Magnus + 

Continuing. But when the decisive moment comes, they find out what a wonderful man you are. + 

Proteus + 

I am not a wonderful man. There is not a man or woman here whose job I could do as well as they do it. I am Prime Minister for the same reason that all Prime Ministers have been Prime Ministers: because I am good for nothing else. But I can keep to the point⁠—when it suits me. And I can keep you to the point, sir, whether it suits you or not. + 

Magnus + 

At all events you do not flatter kings. One of them, at least, is grateful to you for that. + 

Proteus + 

Kings, as you and I very well know, rule their ministers by flattering them; and now that you are the only king left in the civilized half of Europe Nature seems to have concentrated in you all the genius for flattery that she used to have to divide between half a dozen kings, three emperors, and a Sultan. + 

Magnus + 

But what interest has a king in flattering a subject? + 

Amanda + 

Suppose she’s a good-looking woman, sir! + 

Nicobar + 

Suppose he has a lot of money, and the king’s hard up! + 

Proteus + 

Suppose he is a Prime Minister, and you can do nothing except by his advice. + 

Magnus + 

Smiling with his utmost charm. Ah, there you have hit the nail on the head. Well, I suppose I must surrender. I am beaten. You are all too clever for me. + 

Boanerges + 

Well, nothing can be fairer than that. + 

Pliny + 

Rubbing his hands. You are a gentleman, sir. We shan’t rub it in, you know. + 

Balbus + 

Ever the best of friends. I am the last to kick a man when he’s down. + 

Crassus + 

I may be a jobber; but nobody shall say that I am an ungenerous opponent. + 

Boanerges + 

Suddenly overwhelmed with emotion, rises and begins singing in stentorian tones. + 

Should auld acquaintance be forgot, + 

And never brought to mind⁠— + 

Amanda bursts into uncontrollable laughter. The King looks reproachfully at her, struggling hard to keep his countenance. The others are beginning to join in the chorus when Proteus rises in a fury. + 

Proteus + 

Are you all drunk? + 

Dead silence. Boanerges sits down hastily. The other singers pretend that they have disapproved of his minstrelsy. + 

Proteus + 

You are at present engaged in a tug of war with the King: the tug of your lives. You think you have won. You haven’t. All that has happened is that the King has let go the rope. You are sprawling on your backs; and he is laughing at you. Look at him! He sits down contemptuously. + 

Magnus + 

Making no further attempt to conceal his merriment. Come to my rescue, Amanda. It was you who set me off. + 

Amanda + 

Wreathed with smiles. You got me so nicely, sir. To Boanerges. Bill: you are a great boob. + 

Boanerges + 

I don’t understand this, I understood His Majesty to give way to us in, I must say, the handsomest manner. Can’t we take our victory like gentlemen? + 

Magnus + 

Perhaps I had better explain. I quite appreciate the frank and magnanimous spirit⁠—may I say the English spirit?⁠—in which my little concession has been received, especially by you, Mr. Boanerges. But in truth it leaves matters just where they were; for I should never have dreamt of entering on a campaign of recrimination such as the Prime Minister suggested. As he has reminded you, my own character is far too vulnerable. A king is not allowed the luxury of a good character. Our country has produced millions of blameless greengrocers, but not one blameless monarch. I have to rule over more religious sects than I can count. To rule them impartially I must not belong to any of them; and they all regard people who do not belong to them as atheists. My court includes several perfectly respectable wives and mothers whose strange vanity it is to be talked about as abandoned females. To gain the reputation of being the king’s mistress they would do almost anything except give the unfortunate monarch the pleasure of substantiating their claim. Side by side with them are the ladies who are really unscrupulous. They are so careful of their reputations that they lose no opportunity of indignantly denying that they have ever yielded to solicitations which have in fact never been made to them. Thus every king is supposed to be a libertine; and as, oddly enough, he owes a great part of his popularity to this belief, he cannot deny it without deeply disappointing his subjects. + 

There is a rather grim silence, during which the King looks round in vain for some encouraging response. + 

Lysistrata + 

Severely. Your Majesty’s private affairs do not concern us, in any case. + 

Amanda + 

Splutters into an irrepressible laugh. !! + 

Magnus + 

Looks reproachfully at Amanda. ! + 

Amanda + 

Composing her features as best she can. Excuse me. + 

Crassus + 

I hope your Majesty recognizes that kings are not the only people to whom certain sorts of mud always stick, no matter what fool throws them. Call a minister a jobber⁠— + 

Balbus + 

Or a bungler. + 

Crassus + 

Yes, or a bungler, and everybody believes it. Jobbery and incompetence are the two sorts of mud that stick to us, no matter how honest or capable we are; and we haven’t the royal vantage that you enjoy, that the more the ladies take away your character the better the people like you. + 

Boanerges + 

Suddenly. Prime Minister: will you tell me what the Postmistress General is sniggering at? + 

Amanda + 

This a free country, Bill. A sense of humor is not a crime. And when the King is not setting me off, you are. + 

Boanerges + 

Where is the joke? I don’t see it. + 

Amanda + 

If you could see a joke, Bill, you wouldn’t be the great popular orator you are. + 

Boanerges + 

Thank Heaven, I am not a silly giggler like some I could mention. + 

Amanda + 

Thanks, dearest Bill. Now, Joe: don’t you think you have let us run loose long enough? What about that ultimatum? + 

Magnus + 

Shaking his head at her. Traitor! + 

Proteus + 

I am in no hurry. His Majesty’s speeches are very wise and interesting; and your back chat amuses both you and him. But the ultimatum is here all the time; and I shall not leave this room until I have His Majesty’s signed pledge that its conditions will be observed. + 

All become gravely attentive. + 

Magnus + 

What are its terms? + 

Proteus + 

First, no more royal speeches. + 

Magnus + 

What! Not even if you dictate them? + 

Proteus + 

Not even if we dictate them. Your Majesty has a way of unrolling the manuscript and winking⁠— + 

Magnus + 

Winking! + 

Proteus + 

You know what I mean. The best speech in the world can be read in such a way as to set the audience laughing at it. We have had enough of that. So, in future, no speeches. + 

Magnus + 

A dumb king? + 

Proteus + 

Of course we cannot object to such speeches as “We declare this foundation stone well and truly laid” and so forth. But politically, yes: a dumb king. + 

Pliny + 

To soften it. A constitutional king. + 

Proteus + 

Implacably. A dumb king. + 

Magnus + 

Hm! What next? + 

Proteus + 

The working of the Press from the palace back stairs must cease. + 

Magnus + 

You know that I have no control of the Press. The Press is in the hands of men much richer than I, who would not insert a single paragraph against their own interests even if it were signed by my own hand and sent to them with a royal command. + 

Proteus + 

We know that. But though these men are richer than you, they are not cleverer. They get amusing articles, spiced with exclusive backstairs information, that don’t seem to them to have anything to do with politics. The next thing they know is that their pet shares have dropped fifteen points; that capital is frightened off their best prospectuses; and that some of the best measures in our party program are made to look like city jobs. + 

Magnus + 

Am I supposed to write these articles? + 

Nicobar + 

Your man Sempronius does. I can spot his fist out of fifty columns. + 

Crassus + 

So can I. When he is getting at me he always begins the sentence with “Singularly enough.” + 

Pliny + 

Chuckling. That’s his trademark. “Singularly enough.” Ha! ha! + 

Magnus + 

Is there to be any restriction on the other side? I have noticed, for instance, that in a certain newspaper which loses no opportunity of disparaging the throne, the last sentence of the leading article almost invariably begins with the words “Once for all.” Whose trademark is that? + 

Proteus + 

Mine. + 

Magnus + 

Frank, Mr. Proteus. + 

Proteus + 

I know when to be frank. I learnt the trick from Your Majesty. + 

Amanda + 

Tries not to laugh. ! + 

Magnus + 

Gently reproachful. Amanda: what is the joke now? I am surprised at you. + 

Amanda + 

Joe frank! When I want to find out what he is up to I have to come and ask your Majesty. + 

Lysistrata + 

That is perfectly true. In this Cabinet there is no such thing as a policy. Every man plays for his own hand. + 

Nicobar + 

It’s like a game of cards. + 

Balbus + 

Only there are no partners. + 

Lysistrata + 

Except Crassus and Nicobar. + 

Pliny + 

Good, Lizzie! He! he! he! + 

Nicobar + 

What do you mean? + 

Lysistrata + 

You know quite well what I mean. When will you learn, Nicobar, that it is no use trying to browbeat me. I began life as a schoolmistress; and I can browbeat any man in this Cabinet or out of it if he is fool enough to try to compete with me in that department. + 

Boanerges + 

Order! order! Cannot the Prime Minister check these unseemly personalities? + 

Proteus + 

They give me time to think, Bill. When you have had as much parliamentary experience as I have you will be very glad of an interruption occasionally. May I proceed? + 

Silence. + 

Proteus + 

His Majesty asks whether the restriction on press campaigning is to be entirely onesided. That, I take it, sir, is your question. + 

Magnus + 

Nods assent. ! + 

Proteus + 

The answer is in the affirmative. + 

Balbus + 

Good! + 

Magnus + 

Anything more? + 

Proteus + 

Yes: one thing more. The veto must not be mentioned again. That can apply to both sides, if you like. The veto is dead. + 

Magnus + 

May we not make a historical reference to the corpse? + 

Proteus + 

No. I cannot carry on the King’s government unless I can give pledges and carry them out. What is my pledge worth if our constituents are reminded every day that the King may veto anything that Parliament does? Do you expect me to say, when I am asked for a pledge, “You must ask the King”? + 

Magnus + 

I have to say “You must ask the Prime Minister.” + 

Pliny + 

Consoling him. That’s the constitution, you know. + 

Magnus + 

Quite. I only mention it to show that the Prime Minister does not really wish to kill the veto. He only wishes to move it next door. + 

Proteus + 

The people live next door. The name on the brass plate is Public Opinion. + 

Magnus + 

Gravely. Admirably turned, Mr. Prime Minister; but unreal. I am far more subject to public opinion than you, because, thanks to the general belief in democracy, you can always pretend that what you do is done by the will of the people, who, God knows, never dreamt of it, and would not have understood it if they had; whereas, for what a king does, he, and he alone, is held responsible. A demagogue may steal a horse where a king dare not look over a hedge. + 

Lysistrata + 

I doubt if that is any longer true, sir. I know that I get blamed for everything that goes wrong in my department. + 

Magnus + 

Ah! But what a despot you are, Lysistrata! Granted, however, that the people have found out long ago that democracy is humbug, and that instead of establishing responsible government it has abolished it, do you not see what this means? + 

Boanerges + 

Scandalized. Steady, steady! I cannot sit here and listen to such a word as humbug being applied to democracy. I am sorry, sir; but with all respect for you, I really must draw the line at that. + 

Magnus + 

You are right, Mr. Boanerges, as you always are. Democracy is a very real thing, with much less humbug about it than many older institutions. But it means, not that the people govern, but that the responsibility and the veto now belong neither to kings nor demagogues as such, but to whoever is clever enough to get them. + 

Lysistrata + 

Yourself, sir, for example? + 

Magnus + 

I think I am in the running. That is why I do not feel bound to accept this ultimatum. By signing it I put myself out of the running. Why should I? + 

Balbus + 

Because you’re the king: that’s why. + 

Magnus + 

Does it follow? + 

Proteus + 

If two men ride the same horse, one must ride behind. + 

Lysistrata + 

Which? + 

Proteus + 

Turning to her sharply. What was that you said? + 

Lysistrata + 

With placid but formidable obstinacy and ironical explicitness. I said Which? You said that if two men rode the same horse one of them must ride behind. I said Which? Explanatorily. Which man must ride behind? + 

Amanda + 

Got it, Joe? + 

Proteus + 

That is exactly the question that has to be settled here and now. + 

Amanda + 

“Once for all.” + 

Everybody laughs except Proteus, who rises in a fury. + 

Proteus + 

I will not stand this perpetual tomfooling. I had rather be a dog than the Prime Minister of a country where the only things the inhabitants can be serious about are football and refreshments. Lick the King’s boots: that is all you are fit for. He dashes out of the room. + 

Balbus + 

You’ve done it now, Mandy. I hope you’re proud of yourself. + 

Magnus + 

It is you, Amanda, who should go and coax him back. But I suppose I must do it myself, as usual. Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen. + 

He rises. The rest rise. He goes out. + 

Boanerges + 

I told you. I told you what would come of conducting a conference with His Majesty as if it were a smoking concert. I am disgusted. He flings himself back into his chair. + 

Balbus + 

We’d just cornered the old fox; and then Amanda must have her silly laugh and lets him out of it. He sits. + 

Nicobar + 

What are we to do now? that’s what I want to know. + 

Amanda + 

Incorrigible. I suggest a little community singing. She makes conductorlike gestures. + 

Nicobar + 

Yah!! He sits down very sulkily. + 

Amanda + 

Sits down with a little splutter of laughter. ! + 

Crassus + 

Thoughtful. Take it easy, friends. Joe knows what he is about. + 

Lysistrata + 

Of course he does. I can excuse you, Bill, because it’s your first day in the Cabinet. But if the rest of you haven’t found out by this time that Joe’s rages are invariably calculated, then nothing will ever teach you anything. She sits down contemptuously. + 

Boanerges + 

In his grandest manner. Well, madam, I know I am a newcomer: everything must have a beginning. I am open to argument and conviction. The Prime Minister brought this conference, in what I admit was a very able and resolute manner, to the verge of a decision. Then, in a fit of childish temper he breaks up the conference, leaving us looking like fools with nothing done. And you tell me he did it on purpose! Where was the advantage to him in such a display? answer me that. + 

Lysistrata + 

He is settling the whole business with the King behind our backs. That is what Joe always contrives to do, by hook or crook. + 

Pliny + 

You didn’t arrange it with him, Mandy: did you? + 

Amanda + 

There wasn’t any need to arrange it. Joe can always depend on one or other of us saying something that will give him an excuse for flying out. + 

Crassus + 

In my opinion, ladies and gentlemen, we have done our bit, and may leave the rest to Joe. Matters had reached a point at which it was yes or no between the Cabinet and the Crown. There is only one sort of committee that is better than a committee of two; and that is a committee of one. Like the family in Wordsworth’s poem, we are seven⁠— + 

Lysistrata + 

Eight. + 

Crassus + 

Well, seven or eight, we were too many for the final grapple. Two persons sticking to the point are worth eight all over the shop. So my advice is that we just sit here quietly until Joe comes back and tells us what’s been settled. Perhaps Amanda will oblige with a song. He resumes his seat. + 

The King returns with Proteus, who looks glum. All rise. The two resume their seats in silence. The rest sit down. + 

Magnus + 

Very grave. The Prime Minister has been good enough to pursue the discussion with me in private to a point at which the issue is now clear. If I do not accept the ultimatum I shall receive your resignations and his; and the country will learn from his explanatory speech in the House of Commons that it is to choose between Cabinet government and monarchical government: an issue on which I frankly say that I should be very sorry to win, as I cannot carry on without the support of a body of ministers whose existence gives the English people a sensation of self-government. + 

Amanda + 

Splutters. ! + 

Crassus + 

Whispers. Shut up, will you? + 

Magnus + 

Continuing. Naturally I want to avert a conflict in which success would damage me and failure disable me. But you tell me that I can do so only by signing pledges which would make me a mere Lord Chamberlain, without even the despotism which he exercises over the theatre. I should sink below the level of the meanest of my subjects, my sole privilege being that of being shot at when some victim of misgovernment resorts to assassination to avenge himself. How am I to defend myself? You are many: I oppose you single-handed. There was a time when the king could depend on the support of the aristocracy and the cultivated bourgeoisie. Today there is not a single aristocrat left in politics, not a single member of the professions, not a single leading personage in big business or finance. They are richer than ever, more powerful than ever, more able and better educated than ever. But not one of them will touch this drudgery of government, this public work that never ends because we cannot finish one job without creating ten fresh ones. We get no thanks for it because ninety-nine hundredths of it is unknown to the people, and the remaining hundredth is resented by them as an invasion of their liberty or an increase in their taxation. It wears out the strongest man, and even the strongest woman, in five or six years. It slows down to nothing when we are fresh from our holidays and best able to bear it, and rises in an overwhelming wave through some unforeseen catastrophe when we are on the verge of nervous breakdown from overwork and fit for rest and sleep only. And this drudgery, remember, is a sweated trade, the only one now left in this country. My civil list leaves me a poor man among multimillionaires. Your salaries can be earned ten times over in the city by anyone with outstanding organizing or administrative ability. History tells us that the first Lord Chancellor who abandoned the woolsack for the city boardroom struck the nation with amazement: today the nation would be equally amazed if a man of his ability thought it worth his while to prefer the woolsack even to the stool of an office boy as a jumping-off place for his ambition. Our work is no longer even respected. It is looked down on by our men of genius as dirty work. What great actor would exchange his stage? what great barrister his court? what great preacher his pulpit? for the squalor of the political arena in which we have to struggle with foolish factions in parliament and with ignorant voters in the constituencies? The scientists will have nothing to do with us; for the atmosphere of politics is not the atmosphere of science. Even political science, the science by which civilization must live or die, is busy explaining the past whilst we have to grapple with the present: it leaves the ground before our feet in black darkness whilst it lights up every corner of the landscape behind us. All the talent and genius of the country is bought up by the flood of unearned money. On that poisoned wealth talent and genius live far more luxuriously in the service of the rich than we in the service of our country. Politics, once the centre of attraction for ability, public spirit, and ambition, has now become the refuge of a few fanciers of public speaking and party intrigue who find all the other avenues to distinction closed to them either by their lack of practical ability, their comparative poverty and lack of education, or, let me hasten to add, their hatred of oppression and injustice, and their contempt for the chicaneries and false pretences of commercialized professionalism. History tells us of a gentleman-statesman who declared that such people were not fit to govern. Within a year it was discovered that they could govern at least as well as anyone else who could be persuaded to take on the job. Then began that abandonment of politics by the old governing class which has ended in all Cabinets, conservative no less than progressive, being what were called in the days of that rash statesman Labor Cabinets. Do not misunderstand me: I do not want the old governing class back. It governed so selfishly that the people would have perished if democracy had not swept it out of politics. But evil as it was in many ways, at least it stood above the tyranny of popular ignorance and popular poverty. Today only the king stands above that tyranny. You are dangerously subject to it. In spite of my urgings and remonstrances you have not yet dared to take command of our schools and put a stop to the inculcation upon your unfortunate children of superstitions and prejudices that stand like stone walls across every forward path. Are you well advised in trying to reduce me to your own slavery to them? If I do not stand above them there is no longer any reason for my existence at all. I stand for the future and the past, for the posterity that has no vote and the tradition that never had any. I stand for the great abstractions: for conscience and virtue; for the eternal against the expedient; for the evolutionary appetite against the day’s gluttony; for intellectual integrity, for humanity, for the rescue of industry from commercialism and of science from professionalism, for everything that you desire as sincerely as I, but which in you is held in leash by the Press, which can organize against you the ignorance and superstition, the timidity and credulity, the gullibility and prudery, the hating and hunting instinct of the voting mob, and cast you down from power if you utter a word to alarm or displease the adventurers who have the Press in their pockets. Between you and that tyranny stands the throne. I have no elections to fear; and if any newspaper magnate dares offend me, that magnate’s fashionable wife and marriageable daughters will soon make him understand that the King’s displeasure is still a sentence of social death within range of St. James’s Palace. Think of the things you dare not do! the persons you dare not offend! Well, a king with a little courage may tackle them for you. Responsibilities which would break your backs may still be borne on a king’s shoulders. But he must be a king, not a puppet. You would be responsible for a puppet: remember that. But whilst you continue to support me as a separate and independent estate of the realm, I am your scapegoat: you get the credit of all our popular legislation whilst you put the odium of all our resistance to ignorant popular clamor on me. I ask you, before you play your last card and destroy me, to consider where you will be without me. Think once: think twice: for your danger is, not that I may defeat you, but that your success is certain if you insist. + 

Lysistrata + 

Splendid! + 

Amanda + 

You did speak that piece beautifully, sir. + 

Balbus + 

Grumbling. All very well; but what about my brother-in-law Mike? + 

Lysistrata + 

Maddened. Oh, confound your brother-in-law Mike! + 

Boanerges + 

Order! order! + 

Lysistrata + 

To the King. I beg your pardon, sir; but really⁠—at a moment like this⁠—words fail her. + 

Magnus + 

To Balbus. If I had not put my foot down, Mr. Balbus, the Prime Minister would have been unable to keep your brother-in-law out of the Cabinet. + 

Balbus + 

Aggressively. And why should he not be in the Cabinet? + 

Amanda + 

Booze, my Balby: booze. Raising the elbow! + 

Balbus + 

Bullying. Who says so? + 

Amanda + 

I do, darling. + 

Balbus + 

Subsiding. Well, perhaps it would surprise you all to know that Mike doesn’t drink as much as I do. + 

Amanda + 

You carry it better, Bert. + 

Pliny + 

Mike never knows when to stop. + 

Crassus + 

The time for Mike to stop is before he begins, if you ask me. + 

Lysistrata + 

Impetuously. What sort of animals are you⁠—you men? The King puts before us the most serious question of principle we shall ever have to deal with; and off you start discussing whether this drunken wretch takes honest whisky like Balbus or methylated spirit or petrol or whatever he can lay his hands on when the fit takes him. + 

Balbus + 

I agree with that. What does it matter what Mike drinks? What does it matter whether he drinks or not? Mike would strengthen the Cabinet because he represents Breakages, Limited, the biggest industrial corporation in the country. + 

Lysistrata + 

Letting herself go. Just so! Breakages, Limited! just so! Listen to me, sir; and judge whether I have not reason to feel everything you have just said to the very marrow of my bones. Here am I, the Powermistress Royal. I have to organize and administer all the motor power in the country for the good of the country. I have to harness the winds and the tides, the oils and the coal seams. I have to see that every little sewing machine in the Hebrides, every dentist’s drill in Shetland, every carpet sweeper in Margate, has its stream of driving power on tap from a switch in the wall as punctually as the great thundering dynamos of our big industrial plants. I do it; but it costs twice as much as it should. Why? Because every new invention is bought up and suppressed by Breakages, Limited. Every breakdown, every accident, every smash and crash, is a job for them. But for them we should have unbreakable glass, unbreakable steel, imperishable materials of all sorts. But for them our goods trains could be started and stopped without battering and tearing the vitals out of every wagon and sending it to their repair shops once a week instead of once a year. Our national repair bill runs up to hundreds of millions. I could name you a dozen inventions within my own term of office which would have effected enormous economies in breakages and breakdowns; but these people can afford to pay an inventor more for his machine or his process or whatever it may be than he could hope to make by a legitimate use of it; and when they have bought it they smother it. When the inventor is poor and not good at defending himself they make bogus trials of his machine and report that it is no use. I have been shot at twice by inventors driven crazy by this sort of thing: they blamed me for it⁠—as if I could stand up against this monster with its millions and its newspapers and its fingers in every pie. It is heartbreaking. I love my department: I dream of nothing but its efficiency: with me it comes before every personal tie, every happiness that common women run after. I would give my right hand to see these people in the bankruptcy court with half their business abolished and the other half done in public workshops where public losses are not private gains. You stand for that, sir; and I would be with you to the last drop of my blood if I dared. But what can I do? If I said one word of this in public, not a week would pass in the next two years without an article on the inefficiency and corruption of all Government departments, especially departments managed, like mine, by females. They would dig up the very machines they have buried, and make out that it is my fault that they have never been brought into use. They would set their private police to watch me day and night to get something against my private character. One of their directors told me to my face that by lifting up his finger he could get my windows broken by the mob; and that Breakages, Limited, would get the job of putting in new glass. And it is true. It is infamous; it is outrageous; but if I attempt to fight them I shall be hounded out of public life, and they will shove Mouldly Mike into the Cabinet to run my department in their interests: that is, to make such a failure of it that Joe will have to sell it to Breakages, Limited, at scrap iron prices. I⁠—I⁠—oh, it is beyond bearing. She breaks down. + 

There is a troubled silence for a moment. Then the voice of the Prime Minister breaks it impressively as he addresses the King. + 

Proteus + 

You hear that, sir. Your one supporter in the Cabinet admits that the industrial situation is too strong for her. I do not pretend to be able to control the women in my Cabinet; but not one of them dare support you. + 

Amanda + 

Springing up. What’s that? Not dare! What do you bet that I don’t go down to Mouldy Mike’s constituency and say everything that Lizzie has said and a lot more too, if I choose? I tell you, Breakages, Limited, never interferes in my department. I’d like to catch them at it. + 

Magnus + 

I am afraid that that is only because the efficiency of the Post Office is as important to them as to the general public. + 

Amanda + 

Stuff! They could get rid of me without shutting up the Post Office. They’re afraid of me⁠—of me, Amanda Postlethwaite. + 

Magnus + 

You coax them, I am afraid. + 

Amanda + 

Coax! What do you think they care for coaxing? They can have all the coaxing they want from younger and prettier women than I by paying for it. No use trying to coax that lot. Intimidate them: that’s the way to handle them. + 

Lysistrata + 

Her voice still broken. I wish I could intimidate them. + 

Magnus + 

But what can Amanda do that you cannot do? + 

Amanda + 

I’ll tell you. She can’t mimic people. And she can’t sing funny songs. I can do both; and that⁠—with all respect, sir⁠—makes me the real queen of England. + 

Boanerges + 

Oh, come! Disgraceful! Shame! + 

Amanda + 

If you provoke me, Bill, I’ll drive you out of your constituency inside of two months. + 

Boanerges + 

Ho! You will, will you? How? + 

Amanda + 

Just as I drove the Chairman of Breakages out of my own constituency when he came down there and tried to take my seat from me. + 

Magnus + 

I never quite understood why he turned tail. How did you do it? + 

Amanda + 

I’ll tell you. He opened his campaign with a great Saturday night speech against me in the Home Lovers’ Hall to five thousand people. In that same hall a week later, I faced a meeting of the very same people. I didn’t argue. I mimicked him. I took all the highfalutin passages in his speech, and repeated them in his best manner until I had the whole five thousand laughing at him. Then I asked them would they like me to sing; and their Yes nearly lifted the roof off. I had two songs. They both had choruses. One went “She lets me go out on Saturday night, on Saturday night, on Saturday night”⁠—like that. The other went “Boo! Hoo! I want Amanda’s Teddy bear to play with.” They sang it under the windows of his hotel next time he came. He cancelled his meeting and left. And that’s how England is governed by yours truly, sir. Lucky for England that Queen Amanda is a good sort, in spite of some surface faults. She resumes her seat with triumphant self-satisfaction. + 

Balbus + 

Lucky for England there’s only one of you: that’s what I say. + 

Amanda + 

Wafts him a kiss. ! + 

Magnus + 

Should not the Queen support the King, your Majesty? + 

Amanda + 

Sorry, sir; but there isn’t room for two monarchs in my realm. I am against you on principle because the talent for mimicry isn’t hereditary. + 

Proteus + 

Now, anybody else? We have heard why the two ladies cannot support the King. Is there anybody who can? + 

Silence. + 

Magnus + 

I see that my appeal has been in vain. I do not reproach you, ladies and gentlemen, because I perceive that your situation is a difficult one. The question is how to change it. + 

Nicobar + 

Sign the ultimatum: that is how. + 

Magnus + 

I am not quite convinced of that. The Home Secretary’s brother-in-law was quite willing to sign the pledge of total abstinence if I would admit him to the Cabinet. His offer was not accepted, because, though none of us doubted that he would sign the pledge, we were not equally certain that the infirmities of his nature would allow him to keep it. My nature is also subject to infirmity. Are you satisfied, Mr. Proteus, that if I sign this ultimatum, I shall not inevitably relapse into the conduct that my nature dictates? + 

Proteus + 

His patience strained. What is the use of going on like this? You are a man on the scaffold, spinning out his prayers to put off the inevitable execution as long as possible. Nothing that you can say will make any difference. You know you must sign. Why not sign and have done with it? + 

Nicobar + 

Now you’re talking, Joe. + 

Balbus + 

That’s the stuff to give him. + 

Pliny + 

Gulp it down, sir. It won’t get any sweeter by keeping: what? + 

Lysistrata + 

Oh, for God’s sake, sign, sir. This is torture to me. + 

Magnus + 

I perceive, gentlemen, that I have come to the end of your patience. I will tax it no further: you have been very forbearing; and I thank you for it. I will say no more by way of discussion; but I must have until five o’clock this evening to consider my decision. At that hour, if I can find no other way out, I will sign without another word. Meanwhile, ladies and gentlemen, au revoir! + 

He rises. All rise. He marches out. + 

Proteus + 

His last wriggle. Never mind: we have him safe enough. What about lunch? I am starving. Will you lunch with me, Lizzie. + 

Lysistrata + 

Don’t speak to me. She rushes out distractedly. + 

Amanda + 

Poor darling Lizzie! She’s a regular old true blue die hard. If only I had her brains and education! or if she had my variety talent! what a queen she’d make! Like old Queen Elizabeth, eh? Don’t grieve, Joe: I’ll lunch with you since you’re so pressing. + 

Crassus + 

Come and lunch with me⁠—all of you. + 

Amanda + 

What opulence! Can you afford it? + 

Crassus + 

Breakages will pay. They have a standing account at the Ritz. Over five thousand a year, it comes to. + 

Proteus + 

Right. Let us spoil the Egyptians. + 

Boanerges + 

With Roman dignity. My lunch will cost me one and sixpence; and I shall pay for it myself. He stalks out. + 

Amanda + 

Calling after him. Don’t make a beast of yourself, Bill. Ta ta! + 

Proteus + 

Come on, come on: it’s ever so late. + 

They all hurry out. Sempronius and Pamphilius, entering, have to stand aside to let them pass before returning to their desks. Proteus, with Amanda on his arm, stops in the doorway on seeing them. + 

Proteus + 

Have you two been listening, may I ask? + 

Pamphilius + 

Well, it would be rather inconvenient wouldn’t it, if we had to be told everything that passed? + 

Sempronius + 

Once for all, Mr. Proteus, the King’s private secretaries must hear everything, see everything, and know everything. + 

Proteus + 

Singularly enough, Mr. Sempronius, I haven’t the slightest objection. He goes. + 

Amanda + 

Going with him. Goodbye, Semmy. So long Pam. + 

Seating themselves at their writing tables and yawning prodigiously. + 

Sempronius + 

Pamphilius + 

Ou‑ou‑ou‑ou‑ou‑fff!!! + 