George Bernard Shaw - Pygmalion and Three Other Plays

MRS HUSHABYE Oh, we can’t bury a man alive for ten years for a few diamonds.

THE BURGLAR Ten little shining diamonds! Ten long black years!

LADY UTTERWORD Think of what it is for us to be dragged through the horrors of a criminal court, and have all our family affairs in the papers! If you were a native, and Hastings could order you a good beating and send you away, I shouldn’t mind; but here in England there is no real protection for any respectable person.

THE BURGLAR I’m too old to be giv a hiding, lady. Send for the police and have done with it. It’s only just and right you should.

RANDALL [ who has relaxed his vigilance on seeing the burglar so pacifically disposed, and comes forward swinging the poker between his fingers like a well-folded umbrella ] It is neither just nor right that we should be put to a lot of inconvenience to gratify your moral enthusiasm, my friend. You had better get out, while you have the chance.

THE BURGLAR [ inexorably ] No. I must work my sin off my conscience. This has come as a sort of call to me. Let me spend the rest of my life repenting in a cell. I shall have my reward above.

MANGAN [ exasperated ] The very burglars can’t behave naturally in this house.

HECTOR My good sir, you must work out your salvation at somebody else’s expense. Nobody here is going to charge you.

THE BURGLAR Oh, you won’t charge me, won’t you?

HECTOR No. I’m sorry to be inhospitable; but will you kindly leave the house?

THE BURGLAR Right. I’ll go to the police station and give myself up. [ He turns resolutely to the door: but HECTOR stops him. ]

LADY UTTERWORD You will have to do as you are told.

THE BURGLAR It’s compounding a felony, you know.

MRS HUSHABYE This is utterly ridiculous. Are we to be forced to prosecute this man when we don’t want to?

THE BURGLAR Am I to be robbed of my salvation to save you the trouble of spending a day at the sessions? [314] Active court, when cases are being heard. Is that justice? Is it right? Is it fair to me?

MAZZINI [ rising and leaning across the table persuasively as if it were a pulpit desk or a shop counter ] Come, come! let me show you how you can turn your very crimes to account. Why not set up as a locksmith? You must know more about locks than most honest men?

THE BURGLAR That’s true, sir. But I couldn’t set up as a locksmith under twenty pounds.

RANDALL Well, you can easily steal twenty pounds. You will find it in the nearest bank.

THE BURGLAR [ horrified ] Oh, what a thing for a gentleman to put into the head of a poor criminal scrambling out of the bottomless pit as it were! Oh, shame on you, sir! Oh, God forgive you! [ He throws himself into the big chair and covers his face as if in prayer. ]

LADY UTTERWORD Really, Randall!

HECTOR It seems to me that we shall have to take up a collection for this inopportunely contrite sinner.

LADY UTTERWORD But twenty pounds is ridiculous.

THE BURGLAR [looking up quickly] I shall have to buy a lot of tools, lady.

LADY UTTERWORD Nonsense: you have your burgling kit.

THE BURGLAR What’s a jimmy and a centrebit and an acetylene welding plant [315] Torch. and a bunch of skeleton keys? I shall want a forge, and a smithy, and a shop, and fittings. I can’t hardly do it for twenty.

HECTOR My worthy friend, we haven’t got twenty pounds.

THE BURGLAR [now master of the situation] You can raise it among you, can’t you?

MRS HUSHABYE Give him a sovereign, Hector, and get rid of him.

HECTOR [ giving him a pound ] There! Off with you.

THE BURGLAR [ rising and taking the money very ungratefully] I won’t promise nothing. You have more on you than a quid: all the lot of you, I mean.

LADY UTTERWORD [ rigorously ] Oh, let us prosecute him and have done with it. I have a conscience too, I hope; and I do not feel at all sure that we have any right to let him go, especially if he is going to be greedy and impertinent.

THE BURGLAR [quickly] All right, lady, all right. I’ve no wish to be anything but agreeable. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen; and thank you kindly.

He is hurrying out when he is confronted in the doorway by CAPTAIN SHOTOVER.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [ fixing the burglar with a piercing regard ] What’s this? Are there two of you?

THE BURGLAR [ falling on his knees before the captain in abject terror] Oh, my good Lord, what have I done? Don’t tell me it’s your house I’ve broken into, Captain Shotover.

The captain seizes him by the collar: drags him to his feet: and leads him to the middle of the group, HECTOR falling back beside his wife to make way for them.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [turning him towards ELLIE] Is that your daughter? [He releases him.]

THE BURGLAR Well, how do I know, Captain?You know the sort of life you and me has led. Any young lady of that age might be my daughter anywhere in the wide world, as you might say.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [ to MAZZINI ] You are not Billy Dunn. This is Billy Dunn. Why have you imposed on me?

THE BURGLAR [ indignantly to MAZZINI ] Have you been giving yourself out to be me? You, that nigh blew my head off! Shooting yourself, in a manner of speaking!

MAZZINI My dear Captain Shotover, ever since I came into this house I have done hardly anything else but assure you that I am not Mr William Dunn, but Mazzini Dunn, a very different person.

THE BURGLAR He don’t belong to my branch, Captain. There’s two sets in the family: the thinking Dunns and the drinking Dunns, each going their own ways. I’m a drinking Dunn: he’s a thinking Dunn. But that didn’t give him any right to shoot me.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER So you’ve turned burglar, have you?

THE BURGLAR No, Captain: I wouldn’t disgrace our old sea calling by such a thing. I am no burglar.

LADY UTTERWORD What were you doing with my diamonds?

GUINNESS What did you break into the house for if you’re no burglar?

RANDALL Mistook the house for your own and came in by the wrong window, eh?

THE BURGLAR Well, it’s no use my telling you a lie: I can take in most captains, but not Captain Shotover, because he sold himself to the devil in Zanzibar, and can divine water, spot gold, explode a cartridge in your pocket with a glance of his eye, and see the truth hidden in the heart of man. But I’m no burglar.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER Are you an honest man?

THE BURGLAR I don’t set up to be better than my fellow-creatures, and never did, as you well know, Captain. But what I do is innocent and pious. I enquire about for houses where the right sort of people live. I work it on them same as I worked it here. I break into the house; put a few spoons or diamonds in my pocket; make a noise; get caught; and take up a collection. And you wouldn’t believe how hard it is to get caught when you’re actually trying to. I have knocked over all the chairs in a room without a soul paying any attention to me. In the end I have had to walk out and leave the job.

RANDALL When that happens, do you put back the spoons and diamonds?

THE BURGLAR Well, I don’t fly in the face of Providence, if that’s what you want to know.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER Guinness, you remember this man?

GUINNESS I should think I do, seeing I was married to him, the blackguard!