Augustus Does His Bit | Page 6

at the
bar. I'm a respectable man and must buy my drink and take it home
with me. And they won't serve me with less than a quart. If you'd told
me before the war that I could get through a quart of whisky in a day, I
shouldn't have believed you. That's the good of war: it brings out
powers in a man that he never suspected himself capable of. You said
so yourself in your speech last night.
AUGUSTUS. I did not know that I was talking to an imbecile. You
ought to be ashamed of yourself. There must be an end of this drunken

slacking. I'm going to establish a new order of things here. I shall come
down every morning before breakfast until things are properly in train.
Have a cup of coffee and two rolls for me here every morning at
half-past ten.
THE CLERK. You can't have no rolls. The only baker that baked rolls
was a Hun; and he's been interned.
AUGUSTUS. Quite right, too. And was there no Englishman to take
his place?
THE CLERK. There was. But he was caught spying; and they took him
up to London and shot him.
AUGUSTUS. Shot an Englishman!
THE CLERK. Well, it stands to reason if the Germans wanted to spy
they wouldn't employ a German that everybody would suspect, don't it?
AUGUSTUS [rising again]. Do you mean to say, you scoundrel, that an
Englishman is capable of selling his country to the enemy for gold?
THE CLERK. Not as a general thing I wouldn't say it; but there's men
here would sell their own mothers for two coppers if they got the
chance.
AUGUSTUS. Beamish, it's an ill bird that fouls its own nest.
THE CLERK. It wasn't me that let Little Pifflington get foul. I don't
belong to the governing classes. I only tell you why you can't have no
rolls.
AUGUSTUS [intensely irritated]. Can you tell me where I can find an
intelligent being to take my orders?
THE CLERK. One of the street sweepers used to teach in the school
until it was shut up for the sake of economy. Will he do?
AUGUSTUS. What! You mean to tell me that when the lives of the
gallant fellows in our trenches, and the fate of the British Empire,
depend on our keeping up the supply of shells, you are wasting money
on sweeping the streets?
THE CLERK. We have to. We dropped it for a while; but the infant
death rate went up something frightful.
AUGUSTUS. What matters the death rate of Little Pifflington in a
moment like this? Think of our gallant soldiers, not of your squalling
infants.
THE CLERK. If you want soldiers you must have children. You can't
buy em in boxes, like toy soldiers.

AUGUSTUS. Beamish, the long and the short of it is, you are no
patriot. Go downstairs to your office; and have that gas stove taken
away and replaced by an ordinary grate. The Board of Trade has urged
on me the necessity for economizing gas.
THE CLERK. Our orders from the Minister of Munitions is to use gas
instead of coal, because it saves material. Which is it to be?
AUGUSTUS [bawling furiously at him]. Both! Don't criticize your
orders: obey them. Yours not to reason why: yours but to do and die.
That's war. [Cooling down.] Have you anything else to say?
THE CLERK. Yes: I want a rise.
AUGUSTUS [reeling against the table in his horror]. A rise! Horatio
Floyd Beamish, do you know that we are at war?
THE CLERK [feebly ironical]. I have noticed something about it in the
papers. Heard you mention it once or twice, now I come to think of it.
AUGUSTUS. Our gallant fellows are dying in the trenches; and you
want a rise!
THE CLERK. What are they dying for? To keep me alive, ain't it? Well,
what's the good of that if I'm dead of hunger by the time they come
back?
AUGUSTUS. Everybody else is making sacrifices without a thought of
self; and you--
THE CLERK. Not half, they ain't. Where's the baker's sacrifice?
Where's the coal merchant's? Where's the butcher's? Charging me
double: that's how they sacrifice themselves. Well, I want to sacrifice
myself that way too. Just double next Saturday: double and not a penny
less; or no secretary for you [he stiffens himself shakily, and makes
resolutely for the door.]
AUGUSTUS [looking after him contemptuously]. Go, miserable
pro-German.
THE CLERK [rushing back and facing him]. Who are you calling a
pro-German?
AUGUSTUS. Another word, and I charge you under the Act with
discouraging me. Go.
The clerk blenches and goes out, cowed.
The telephone rings.
AUGUSTUS [taking up the telephone receiver. Hallo. Yes: who are
you?...oh, Blueloo, is it?...Yes: there's