第 9 页

if he's a gentleman.

WALPOLE. What are we to do with this daisy?

LOUIS. [impatiently] Oh, go and do whatever the devil you please. Put

Minnie in prison. Put me in prison. Kill Jennifer with the disgrace of

it all. And then, when youve done all the mischief you can, go to church

and feel good about it. [He sits down pettishly on the old chair at the

easel, and takes up a sketching block, on which he begins to draw]

WALPOLE. He's got us.

SIR PATRICK [grimly] He has.

B. B. But is he to be allowed to defy the criminal law of the land?

SIR PATRICK. The criminal law is no use to decent people. It only helps

blackguards to blackmail their families. What are we family doctors

doing half our time but conspiring with the family solicitor to keep

some rascal out of jail and some family out of disgrace?

B. B. But at least it will punish him.

SIR PATRICK. Oh, yes: Itll punish him. Itll punish not only him but

everybody connected with him, innocent and guilty alike. Itll throw his

board and lodging on our rates and taxes for a couple of years, and then

turn him loose on us a more dangerous blackguard than ever. Itll put the

girl in prison and ruin her: Itll lay his wife's life waste. You may put

the criminal law out of your head once for all: it's only fit for fools

and savages.

LOUIS. Would you mind turning your face a little more this way, Sir

Patrick. [Sir Patrick turns indignantly and glares at him]. Oh, thats

too much.

SIR PATRICK. Put down your foolish pencil, man; and think of your

position. You can defy the laws made by men; but there are other laws to

reckon with. Do you know that youre going to die?

LOUIS. We're all going to die, arnt we?

WALPOLE. We're not all going to die in six months.

LOUIS. How do you know?

This for B. B. is the last straw. He completely loses his temper and

begins to walk excitedly about.

B. B. Upon my soul, I will not stand this. It is in questionable taste

under any circumstances or in any company to harp on the subject

of death; but it is a dastardly advantage to take of a medical man.

[Thundering at Dubedat] I will not allow it, do you hear?

LOUIS. Well, I didn't begin it: you chaps did. It's always the way with

the inartistic professions: when theyre beaten in argument they fall

back on intimidation. I never knew a lawyer who didnt threaten to put me

in prison sooner or later. I never knew a parson who didnt threaten me

with damnation. And now you threaten me with death. With all your talk

youve only one real trump in your hand, and thats Intimidation. Well,

I'm not a coward; so it's no use with me.

B. B. [advancing upon him] I'll tell you what you are, sir. Youre a

scoundrel.

LOUIS. Oh, I don't mind you calling me a scoundrel a bit. It's only a

word: a word that you dont know the meaning of. What is a scoundrel?

B. B. You are a scoundrel, sir.

LOUIS. Just so. What is a scoundrel? I am. What am I? A Scoundrel. It's

just arguing in a circle. And you imagine youre a man of science!

B. B. I--I--I--I have a good mind to take you by the scruff of your

neck, you infamous rascal, and give you a sound thrashing.

LOUIS. I wish you would. Youd pay me something handsome to keep it

out of court afterwards. [B. B., baffled, flings away from him with a

snort]. Have you any more civilities to address to me in my own house? I

should like to get them over before my wife comes back. [He resumes his

sketching].

RIDGEON. My mind's made up. When the law breaks down, honest men must

find a remedy for themselves. I will not lift a finger to save this

reptile.

B. B. That is the word I was trying to remember. Reptile.

WALPOLE. I cant help rather liking you, Dubedat. But you certainly are a

thoroughgoing specimen.

SIR PATRICK. You know our opinion of you now, at all events.

LOUIS [patiently putting down his pencil] Look here. All this is no

good. You dont understand. You imagine that I'm simply an ordinary

criminal.

WALPOLE. Not an ordinary one, Dubedat. Do yourself justice.

LOUIS. Well youre on the wrong tack altogether. I'm not a criminal. All

your moralizings have no value for me. I don't believe in morality. I'm

a disciple of Bernard Shaw.

SIR PATRICK [puzzled] Eh?

B.B. [waving his hand as if the subject was now disposed of] Thats

enough, I wish to hear no more.

LOUIS. Of course I havnt the ridiculous vanity to set up to be exactly

a Superman; but still, it's an ideal that I strive towards just as any

other man strives towards his ideal.

B. B. [intolerant] Dont trouble to explain. I now understand you

perfectly. Say no more, please. When a man pretends to discuss science,

morals, and religion, and then avows himself a follower of a notorious

and avowed anti-vaccinationist, there is nothing more to be said.

[Suddenly putting in an effusive saving clause in parenthesis to

Ridgeon] Not, my dear Ridgeon, that I believe in vaccination in the

popular sense any more than you do: I neednt tell you that. But there

are things that place a man socially; and anti-vaccination is one of

them. [He resumes his seat on the dais].

SIR PATRICK. Bernard Shaw? I never heard of him. He's a Methodist

preacher, I suppose.

LOUIS [scandalized] No, no. He's the most advanced man now living: he

isn't anything.

SIR PATRICK. I assure you, young man, my father learnt the doctrine of

deliverance from sin from John Wesley's own lips before you or Mr. Shaw

were born. It used to be very popular as an excuse for putting sand in

sugar and water in milk. Youre a sound Methodist, my lad; only you don't

know it.

LOUIS [seriously annoyed for the first time] Its an intellectual insult.

I don't believe theres such a thing as sin.

SIR PATRICK. Well, sir, there are people who dont believe theres such

a thing as disease either. They call themselves Christian Scientists, I

believe. Theyll just suit your complaint. We can do nothing for you. [He

rises]. Good afternoon to you.

LOUIS [running to him piteously] Oh dont get up, Sir Patrick. Don't go.

Please dont. I didnt mean to shock you, on my word. Do sit down again.

Give me another chance. Two minutes more: thats all I ask.

SIR PATRICK [surprised by this sign of grace, and a little touched]

Well--[He sits down]

LOUIS [gratefully] Thanks awfully.

SIR PATRICK [continuing] I don't mind giving you two minutes more. But

dont address yourself to me; for Ive retired from practice; and I dont

pretend to be able to cure your complaint. Your life is in the hands of

these gentlemen.

RIDGEON. Not in mine. My hands are full. I have no time and no means

available for this case.

SIR PATRICK. What do you say, Mr. Walpole?

WALPOLE. Oh, I'll take him in hand: I dont mind. I feel perfectly

convinced that this is not a moral case at all: it's a physical one.

Theres something abnormal about his brain. That means, probably,

some morbid condition affecting the spinal cord. And that means the

circulation. In short, it's clear to me that he's suffering from an

obscure form of blood-poisoning, which is almost certainly due to an

accumulation of ptomaines in the nuciform sac. I'll remove the sac--

LOUIS [changing color] Do you mean, operate on me? Ugh! No, thank you.

WALPOLE. Never fear: you wont feel anything. Youll be under an

anaesthetic, of course. And it will be extraordinarily interesting.

LOUIS. Oh, well, if it would interest you, and if it wont hurt, thats

another matter. How much will you give me to let you do it?

WALPOLE [rising indignantly] How much! What do you mean?

LOUIS. Well, you dont expect me to let you cut me up for nothing, do

you?

WALPOLE. Will you paint my portrait for nothing?

LOUIS. No; but I'll give you the portrait when its painted; and you

can sell it afterwards for perhaps double the money. But I cant sell my

nuciform sac when youve cut it out.

WALPOLE. Ridgeon: did you ever hear anything like this! [To Louis]

Well, you can keep your nuciform sac, and your tubercular lung, and your

diseased brain: Ive done with you. One would think I was not conferring

a favor on the fellow! [He returns to his stool in high dudgeon].

SIR PATRICK. That leaves only one medical man who has not withdrawn from

your case, Mr. Dubedat. You have nobody left to appeal to now but Sir

Ralph Bloomfield Bonington.

WALPOLE. If I were you, B. B., I shouldnt touch him with a pair of

tongs. Let him take his lungs to the Brompton Hospital. They wont cure

him; but theyll teach him manners.

B. B. My weakness is that I have never been able to say No, even to the

most thoroughly undeserving people. Besides, I am bound to say that I

dont think it is possible in medical practice to go into the question of

the value of the lives we save. Just consider, Ridgeon. Let me put it to

you, Paddy. Clear your mind of cant, Walpole.

WALPOLE [indignantly] My mind is clear of cant.

B. B. Quite so. Well now, look at my practice. It is what I suppose you

would call a fashionable practice, a smart practice, a practice among

the best people. You ask me to go into the question of whether my

patients are of any use either to themselves or anyone else. Well, if

you apply any scientific test known to me, you will achieve a reductio

ad absurdum. You will be driven to the conclusion that the majority

of them would be, as my friend Mr J. M. Barrie has tersely phrased it,

better dead. Better dead. There are exceptions, no doubt. For instance,

there is the court, an essentially social-democratic institution,

supported out of public funds by the public because the public wants

it and likes it. My court patients are hard-working people who give

satisfaction, undoubtedly. Then I have a duke or two whose estates are

probably better managed than they would be in public hands. But as to

most of the rest, if I once began to argue about them, unquestionably

the verdict would be, Better dead. When they actually do die, I

sometimes have to offer that consolation, thinly disguised, to the

family. [Lulled by the cadences of his own voice, he becomes drowsier

and drowsier]. The fact that they spend money so extravagantly

on medical attendance really would not justify me in wasting my

talents--such as they are--in keeping them alive. After all, if my fees

are high, I have to spend heavily. My own tastes are simple: a camp

bed, a couple of rooms, a crust, a bottle of wine; and I am happy and

contented. My wife's tastes are perhaps more luxurious; but even she

deplores an expenditure the sole object of which is to maintain

the state my patients require from their medical attendant.

The--er--er--er--[suddenly waking up] I have lost the thread of these

remarks. What was I talking about, Ridgeon?

RIDGEON. About Dubedat.

B. B. Ah yes. Precisely. Thank you. Dubedat, of course. Well, what is

our friend Dubedat? A vicious and ignorant young man with a talent for

drawing.

LOUIS. Thank you. Dont mind me.

B. B. But then, what are many of my patients? Vicious and ignorant young

men without a talent for anything. If I were to stop to argue about

their merits I should have to give up three-quarters of my practice.

Therefore I have made it a rule not so to argue. Now, as an honorable

man, having made that rule as to paying patients, can I make an

exception as to a patient who, far from being a paying patient, may more

fitly be described as a borrowing patient? No. I say No. Mr Dubedat:

your moral character is nothing to me. I look at you from a purely

scientific point of view. To me you are simply a field of battle in

which an invading army of tubercle bacilli struggles with a patriotic

force of phagocytes. Having made a promise to your wife, which my

principles will not allow me to break, to stimulate those phagocytes,

I will stimulate them. And I take no further responsibility. [He digs

himself back in his seat exhausted].

SIR PATRICK. Well, Mr Dubedat, as Sir Ralph has very kindly offered to

take charge of your case, and as the two minutes I promised you are up,

I must ask you to excuse me. [He rises].

LOUIS. Oh, certainly. Ive quite done with you. [Rising and holding up

the sketch block] There! While youve been talking, Ive been doing. What

is there left of your moralizing? Only a little carbonic acid gas which

makes the room unhealthy. What is there left of my work? That. Look at

it [Ridgeon rises to look at it].

SIR PATRICK [who has come down to him from the throne] You young rascal,

was it drawing me you were?

LOUIS. Of course. What else?

SIR PATRICK [takes the drawing from him and grunts approvingly] Thats

rather good. Dont you think so, Lolly?

RIDGEON. Yes. So good that I should like to have it.

SIR PATRICK. Thank you; but _I_ should like to have it myself. What d'ye

think, Walpole?

WALPOLE [rising and coming over to look] No, by Jove: _I_ must have

this.

LOUIS. I wish I could afford to give it to you, Sir Patrick. But I'd pay

five guineas sooner than part with it.

RIDGEON. Oh, for that matter, I will give you six for it.

WALPOLE. Ten.

LOUIS. I think Sir Patrick is morally entitled to it, as he sat for it.

May I send it to your house, Sir Patrick, for twelve guineas?

SIR PATRICK. Twelve guineas! Not if you were President of the Royal

Academy, young man. [He gives him back the drawing decisively and turns

away, taking up his hat].

LOUIS [to B. B.] Would you like to take it at twelve, Sir Ralph?

B. B. [coming between Louis and Walpole] Twelve guineas? Thank you: I'll

take it at that. [He takes it and presents it to Sir Patrick]. Accept it

from me, Paddy; and may you long be spared to contemplate it.

SIR PATRICK. Thank you. [He puts the drawing into his hat].

B. B. I neednt settle with you now, Mr Dubedat: my fees will come to

more than that. [He also retrieves his hat].

LOUIS [indignantly] Well, of all the mean--[words fail him]! I'd let

myself be shot sooner than do a thing like that. I consider youve stolen

that drawing.

SIR PATRICK [drily] So weve converted you to a belief in morality after