Augustus Does His Bit | Page 9

called the Blue Point
for a season or two. Finally he became Blueloo.
THE LADY. Oh, indeed: I didn't know. Well, Blueloo is simply
infatuated with my sister-in-law; and he has rashly let out to her that
this list is in your possession. He forgot himself because he was in a
towering rage at its being entrusted to you: his language was terrible.
He ordered all the guns to be shifted at once.
AUGUSTUS. What on earth did he do that for?
THE LADY. I can't imagine. But this I know. She made a bet with him
that she would come down here and obtain possession of that list and
get clean away into the street with it. He took the bet on condition that
she brought it straight back to him at the War Office.
AUGUSTUS. Good heavens! And you mean to tell me that Blueloo
was such a dolt as to believe that she could succeed? Does he take me
for a fool?
THE LADY. Oh, impossible! He is jealous of your intellect. The bet is
an insult to you: don't you feel that? After what you have done for our
country--
AUGUSTUS. Oh, never mind that. It is the idiocy of the thing I look at.
He'll lose his bet; and serve him right!
THE LADY. You feel sure you will be able to resist the siren? I warn
you, she is very fascinating.
AUGUSTUS. You need have no fear, madam. I hope she will 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.