Magic | Page 7

up the meetings--well, it will look rather funny that we have paid roughs on both sides. It will be rather difficult to explain when it comes before the magistrate.
DUKE. But I shall be the magistrate. [CONJURER stares at him again.] That's the system, my dear Hastings, that's the advantage of the system. Not a logical system--no Rousseau in it--but see how well it works! I shall be the very best magistrate that could be on the Bench. The others would be biassed, you know. Old Sir Lawrence is a Vegetarian himself; and might be hard on the Anti-Vegetarian roughs. Colonel Crashaw would be sure to be hard on the Vegetarian roughs. But if I've paid both of 'em, of course I shan't be hard on either of 'em--and there you have it. Just perfect impartiality.
HASTINGS. [Restrainedly.] Shall I take the programmes, your Grace?
DUKE. [Heartily.] No, no; I won't forget 'em. [Exit HASTINGS.] Well, Professor, what's the news in the conjuring world?
CONJURER. I fear there is never any news in the conjuring world.
DUKE. Don't you have a newspaper or something? Everybody has a newspaper now, you know. The--er--Daily Sword-Swallower or that sort of thing?
CONJURER. No, I have been a journalist myself; but I think journalism and conjuring will always be incompatible.
DUKE. Incompatible--Oh, but that's where I differ--that's where I take larger views! Larger laws, as old Buffle said. Nothing's incompatible, you know--except husband and wife and so on; you must talk to Morris about that. It's wonderful the way incompatibility has gone forward in the States.
CONJURER. I only mean that the two trades rest on opposite principles. The whole point of being a conjurer is that you won't explain a thing that has happened.
DUKE. Well, and the journalist?
CONJURER. Well, the whole point of being a journalist is that you do explain a thing that hasn't happened.
DUKE. But you'll want somewhere to discuss the new tricks.
CONJURER. There are no new tricks. And if there were we shouldn't want 'em discussed.
DUKE. I'm afraid you're not really advanced. Are you interested in modern progress?
CONJURER. Yes. We are interested in all tricks done by illusion.
DUKE. Well, well, I must go and see how Morris is. Pleasure of seeing you later.
[Exit DUKE, leaving the programmes.
CONJURER. Why are nice men such asses? [Turns to arrange the table.] That seems all right. The pack of cards that is a pack of cards. And the pack of cards that isn't a pack of cards. The hat that looks like a gentleman's hat. But which, in reality, is no gentleman's hat. Only my hat; and I am not a gentleman. I am only a conjurer, and this is only a conjurer's hat. I could not take off this hat to a lady. I can take rabbits out of it, goldfish out of it, snakes out of it. Only I mustn't take my own head out of it. I suppose I'm a lower animal than a rabbit or a snake. Anyhow they can get out of the conjurer's hat; and I can't. I am a conjurer and nothing else but a conjurer. Unless I could show I was something else, and that would be worse.
[He begins to dash the cards rather irregularly about the table. Enter PATRICIA.
PATRICIA. [Coldly] I beg your pardon. I came to get some programmes. My uncle wants them.
[She walks swiftly across and takes up the programmes.
CONJURER. [Still dashing cards about the table.] Miss Carleon, might I speak to you a moment? [He puts his hands in his pockets, stares at the table; and his face assumes a sardonic expression.] The question is purely practical.
PATRICIA. [Pausing at the door.] I can hardly imagine what the question can be.
CONJURER. I am the question.
PATRICIA. And what have I to do with that?
CONJURER. You have everything to do with it. I am the question: you....
PATRICIA. [Angrily.] Well, what am I?
CONJURER. You are the answer.
PATRICIA. The answer to what?
CONJURER. [Coming round to the front of the table and sitting against it.] The answer to me. You think I'm a liar because I walked about the fields with you and said I could make stones disappear. Well, so I can. I'm a conjurer. In mere point of fact, it wasn't a lie. But if it had been a lie I should have told it just the same. I would have told twenty such lies. You may or may not know why.
PATRICIA. I know nothing about such lies.
[She puts her hand on the handle of the door, but the CONJURER, who is sitting on the table and staring at his boots, does not notice the action, and goes on as in a sincere soliloquy.
CONJURER. I don't know whether you have any notion of what it means to a man like me to talk to a lady like you, even on false pretences. I am