The Title | Page 7

get rid of the present one. Then we shall see.
CULVER. My dear, you talk as if she was a prime minister. Still, it might be a good plan to sack all the servants before rationing comes in, and engage deaf-mutes.
MRS. CULVER. Deaf-mutes!
CULVER. Deaf-mutes. Then they wouldn't be worried by the continual groaning of my hunger, and I shouldn't hear any complaints about theirs.
MRS. CULVER (to Hildegarde). My pet, you've time to change now. Do run and change. You're so sombre.
HILDEGARDE. I can't do it in twenty minutes.
MRS. CULVER. Then put a bright shawl on--for papa's sake.
HILDEGARDE. I haven't got a bright shawl.
MRS. CULVER. Then take mine. The one with the pink beads on it. It's in my wardrobe--right-hand side.
JOHN. That means it'll be on the left-hand side.
(Exit Hildegarde, _back, with a look at Tranto, who opens the door for her_.)
MRS. CULVER (_with sweet apprehensiveness_). Now Arthur, I'm afraid after all you have something on your mind.
CULVER. I've got nothing on my stomach, anyway. (Bracing himself.) Yes, darling, it's true. I have got something on my mind. Within the last hour I've had a fearful shock--
MRS. CULVER. I knew it!
CULVER. And I need sustaining. I hadn't meant to say anything until after dinner, but in view of cook's drastic alterations in the time-table I may as well tell you (_looking round_) at once.
MRS. CULVER. It's something about the Government again.
CULVER. The Government has been in a very serious situation.
MRS. CULVER (_alarmed_). You mean they're going to ask you to resign?
CULVER. I wish they would!
MRS. CULVER. Arthur! Do please remember the country is at war.
CULVER. Is it? So it is. You see, my pet, I remember such a lot of things. I remember that my brainy partner is counting khaki trousers in the Army clothing department. I remember that my other partner ought to be in a lunatic asylum, but isn't. I remember that my business is going to the dogs at a muzzle velocity of about five thousand feet a second. I remember that from mere snobbishness I work for the Government without a penny of salary, and that my sole reward is to be insulted and libelled by high-brow novelists who write for the press. Therefore you ought not to be startled if I secretly yearn to resign. However, I shall not be asked to resign. I said that the Government had been in a very serious situation. It was. But it will soon recover.
MRS. CULVER. How soon?
CULVER. On New Year's Day.
JOHN. Then what's the fearful shock, dad?
MRS. CULVER. Yes. Have you heard anything special?
CULVER. No. But I've seen something special. I saw it less than an hour ago. It was shown to me without the slightest warning, and I admit it shook me. You can perceive for yourselves that it shook me.
MRS. CULVER. But what?
CULVER. The New Year's Honours List--or rather a few choice selections from the more sensational parts of it.
Enter Hildegarde.
MRS. CULVER. Arthur, what do you mean? (To Hildegarde, in despair.) My chick, your father grows more and more puzzling every day! How well that shawl suits you! You look quite a different girl. But you've--(arranges the shawl on Hildegarde) I really don't know what your father has on his mind! I really don't!
JOHN (_impatient of this feminine manifestation_). Oh, dad, go on. Go on! I want to get at the bottom of this titles business. I'm hanged if I can understand it. What strikes me as an unprejudiced observer is that titles are supposed to be such a terrific honour, and yet the people who deal them out scarcely ever keep any for themselves. Look at Mr. Gladstone, for instance. He must have made about forty earls and seven thousand baronets in his time. Now if I was a Prime Minister, and I believed in titles--which I jolly well don't--I should make myself a duke right off; and I should have several marquises and viscounts round me in the Cabinet like a sort of bodyguard, and my private secretaries would have to be knights. There'd be some logic in that arrangement anyhow.
CULVER. In view of your political career, John, will you mind if I give you a brief lesson on elementary politics--though you are on your holidays?
JOHN (_easily_). I'm game.
CULVER. What is the first duty of modern Governments?
JOHN. To govern.
CULVER. My innocent boy. I thought better of you. I know that you look on the venerable Mr. Tranto as a back number, and I suspect that Mr. Tranto in his turn regards me as prehistoric; and yet you are so behind the times as to imagine that the first duty of modern Governments is to govern! My dear Rip van Winkle, wake up. The first duty of a Government is to live. It has no right to be a Government at all unless it is convinced