Augustus Does His Bit | Page 9

come and try it on. Fascination is a game that two can play at. For centuries the younger sons of the Highcastles have had nothing to do but fascinate attractive females when they were not sitting on Royal Commissions or on duty at Knightsbridge barracks. By Gad, madam, if the siren comes here she will meet her match.
THE LADY. I feel that. But if she fails to seduce you--
AUGUSTUS [blushing]. Madam!
THE LADY [continuing]--from your allegiance--
AUGUSTUS. Oh, that!
THE LADY. --she will resort to fraud, to force, to anything. She will burgle your office: she will have you attacked and garotted at night in the street.
AUGUSTUS. Pooh! I'm not afraid.
THE LADY. Oh, your courage will only tempt you into danger. She may get the list after all. It is true that the guns are moved. But she would win her bet.
AUGUSTUS [cautiously]. You did not say that the guns were moved. You said that Blueloo had ordered them to be moved.
THE LADY. Well, that is the same thing, isn't it?
AUGUSTUS. Not quite--at the War Office. No doubt those guns WILL be moved: possibly even before the end of the war.
THE LADY. Then you think they are there still! But if the German War Office gets the list--and she will copy it before she gives it back to Blueloo, you may depend on it--all is lost.
AUGUSTUS [lazily]. Well, I should not go as far as that. [Lowering his voice.] Will you swear to me not to repeat what I am going to say to you; for if the British public knew that I had said it, I should be at once hounded down as a pro-German.
THE LADY. I will be silent as the grave. I swear it.
AUGUSTUS [again taking it easily]. Well, our people have for some reason made up their minds that the German War Office is everything that our War Office is not--that it carries promptitude, efficiency, and organization to a pitch of completeness and perfection that must be, in my opinion, destructive to the happiness of the staff. My own view--which you are pledged, remember, not to betray--is that the German War Office is no better than any other War Office. I found that opinion on my observation of the characters of my brothers-in-law: one of whom, by the way, is on the German general staff. I am not at all sure that this list of gun emplacements would receive the smallest attention. You see, there are always so many more important things to be attended to. Family matters, and so on, you understand.
THE LADY. Still, if a question were asked in the House of Commons--
AUGUSTUS. The great advantage of being at war, madam, is that nobody takes the slightest notice of the House of Commons. No doubt it is sometimes necessary for a Minister to soothe the more seditious members of that assembly by giving a pledge or two; but the War Office takes no notice of such things.
THE LADY [staring at him]. Then you think this list of gun emplacements doesn't matter!!
AUGUSTUS. By no means, madam. It matters very much indeed. If this spy were to obtain possession of the list, Blueloo would tell the story at every dinner-table in London; and--
THE LADY. And you might lose your post. Of course.
AUGUSTUS [amazed and indignant]. I lose my post! What are you dreaming about, madam? How could I possibly be spared? There are hardly Highcastles enough at present to fill half the posts created by this war. No: Blueloo would not go that far. He is at least a gentleman. But I should be chaffed; and, frankly, I don't like being chaffed.
THE LADY. Of course not. Who does? It would never do. Oh never, never.
AUGUSTUS. I'm glad you see it in that light. And now, as a measure of security, I shall put that list in my pocket. [He begins searching vainly from drawer to drawer in the writing-table.] Where on earth--? What the dickens did I--? That's very odd: I--Where the deuce--? I thought I had put it in the--Oh, here it is! No: this is Lucy's last letter.
THE LADY [elegiacally]. Lucy's Last Letter! What a title for a picture play!
AUGUSTUS [delighted]. Yes: it is, isn't it? Lucy appeals to the imagination like no other woman. By the way [handing over the letter], I wonder could you read it for me? Lucy is a darling girl; but I really can't read her writing. In London I get the office typist to decipher it and make me a typed copy; but here there is nobody.
THE LADY [puzzling over it]. It is really almost illegible. I think the beginning is meant for "Dearest Gus."
AUGUSTUS [eagerly]. Yes: that is what she usually calls me. Please go on.
THE LADY [trying to decipher it]. "What a"--"what a"--oh yes: "what a forgetful old"--something--"you are!"