Major Barbara George Bernard Shaw (crime books to read txt) 📖

of you. Sit down, Andrew. She comes forward and sits on the settle. Cusins also brings his chair forward on her left. Barbara and Stephen resume their seats. Lomax gives his chair to Sarah and goes for another. Undershaft Thank you, my love. Lomax Conversationally, as he brings a chair forward between the writing table and the settee, and offers it to Undershaft. Takes you some time to find out exactly where you are, don’t it? Undershaft Accepting the chair. That is not what embarrasses me, Mr. Lomax. My difficulty is that if I play the part of a father, I shall produce the effect of an intrusive stranger; and if I play the part of a discreet stranger, I may appear a callous father. Lady Britomart There is no need for you to play any part at all, Andrew. You had much better be sincere and natural. Undershaft Submissively. Yes, my dear: I daresay that will be best. Making himself comfortable. Well, here I am. Now what can I do for you all? Lady Britomart You need not do anything, Andrew. You are one of the family. You can sit with us and enjoy yourself. Lomax’s too long suppressed mirth explodes in agonized neighings. Lady Britomart Outraged. Charles Lomax: if you can behave yourself, behave yourself. If not, leave the room. Lomax I’m awfully sorry, Lady Brit; but really, you know, upon my soul! He sits on the settee between Lady Britomart and Undershaft, quite overcome. Barbara Why don’t you laugh if you want to, Cholly? It’s good for your inside. Lady Britomart Barbara: you have had the education of a lady. Please let your father see that; and don’t talk like a street girl. Undershaft Never mind me, my dear. As you know, I am not a gentleman; and I was never educated. Lomax Encouragingly. Nobody’d know it, I assure you. You look all right, you know. Cusins Let me advise you to study Greek, Mr. Undershaft. Greek scholars are privileged men. Few of them know Greek; and none of them know anything else; but their position is unchallengeable. Other languages are the qualifications of waiters and commercial travellers: Greek is to a man of position what the hallmark is to silver. Barbara Dolly: don’t be insincere. Cholly: fetch your concertina and play something for us. Lomax Doubtfully to Undershaft. Perhaps that sort of thing isn’t in your line, eh? Undershaft I am particularly fond of music. Lomax Delighted. Are you? Then I’ll get it. He goes upstairs for the instrument. Undershaft Do you play, Barbara? Barbara Only the tambourine. But Cholly’s teaching me the concertina. Undershaft Is Cholly also a member of the Salvation Army? Barbara No: he says it’s bad form to be a dissenter. But I don’t despair of Cholly. I made him come yesterday to a meeting at the dock gates, and take the collection in his hat. Lady Britomart It is not my doing, Andrew. Barbara is old enough to take her own way. She has no father to advise her. Barbara Oh yes she has. There are no orphans in the Salvation Army. Undershaft Your father there has a great many children and plenty of experience, eh? Barbara Looking at him with quick interest and nodding. Just so. How did you come to understand that? Lomax is heard at the door trying the concertina. Lady Britomart Come in, Charles. Play us something at once. Lomax Righto! He sits down in his former place, and preludes. Undershaft One moment, Mr. Lomax. I am rather interested in the Salvation Army. Its motto might be my own: Blood and Fire. Lomax Shocked. But not your sort of blood and fire, you know. Undershaft My sort of blood cleanses: my sort of fire purifies. Barbara So do ours. Come down tomorrow to my shelter⁠—the West Ham shelter⁠—and see what we’re doing. We’re going to march to a great meeting in the Assembly Hall at Mile End. Come and see the shelter and then march with us: it will do you a lot of good. Can you play anything? Undershaft In my youth I earned pennies, and even shillings occasionally, in the streets and in public house parlors by my natural talent for stepdancing. Later on, I became a member of the Undershaft orchestral society, and performed passably on the tenor trombone. Lomax Scandalized. Oh I say! Barbara Many a sinner has played himself into heaven on the trombone, thanks to the Army. Lomax To Barbara, still rather shocked. Yes; but what about the cannon business, don’t you know? To Undershaft. Getting into heaven is not exactly in your line, is it? Lady Britomart Charles!!! Lomax Well; but it stands to reason, don’t it? The cannon business may be necessary and all that: we can’t get on without cannons; but it isn’t right, you know. On the other hand, there may be a certain amount of tosh about the Salvation Army⁠—I belong to the Established Church myself⁠—but still you can’t deny that it’s religion; and you can’t go against religion, can you? At least unless you’re downright immoral, don’t you know. Undershaft You hardly appreciate my position, Mr. Lomax⁠— Lomax Hastily. I’m not saying anything against you personally, you know. Undershaft Quite so, quite so. But consider for a moment. Here I am, a manufacturer of mutilation and murder. I find myself in a specially amiable humor just now because, this morning, down at the foundry, we blew twenty-seven dummy soldiers into fragments with a gun which formerly destroyed only thirteen. Lomax Leniently. Well, the more destructive war becomes, the sooner it will be abolished, eh? Undershaft Not at all. The more destructive war becomes the more fascinating we find it. No, Mr. Lomax, I am obliged to you for making the usual excuse for my trade; but I am not ashamed of it. I am not one of those men who keep their morals and their business in watertight compartments. All the spare money my trade rivals spend on hospitals, cathedrals and other receptacles for conscience money, I devote to experiments