George Bernard Shaw - Pygmalion and Three Other Plays

SNOBBY Wot is it?

RUMMY Your mother’s askin for you at the other gate in Crippses Lane. She’s heard about your confession [PRICE turns pale] .

MRS. BAINES Go, Mr. Price; and pray with her.

JENNY You can go through the shelter, Snobby.

PRICE [to MRS. BAINES] I couldnt face her now, maam, with all the weight of my sins fresh on me. Tell her she’ll find her son at ome, waitin for her in prayer. [He skulks off through the gate, incidentally stealing the sovereign on his way out by picking up his cap from the drum.] {26} 26 26 (p. 107) incidentally stealing the sovereign on his way out by picking up his cap from the drum: Snobby’s deft theft of Bill’s sovereign parallels Undershaft’s stealthy “removal” of Barbara’s ability to rely on the Salvation Army, which he is in the process of accomplishing underneath the surface of the action.

MRS. BAINES [with swimming eyes] You see how we take the anger and the bitterness against you out of their hearts, Mr. Under shaft.

UNDERSHAFT It is certainly most convenient and gratifying to all large employers of labor, Mrs. Baines.

MRS. BAINES Barbara: Jenny: I have good news: most wonderful news. [JENNY runs to her.] My prayers have been answered. I told you they would, Jenny, didn’t I?

JENNY Yes, yes.

BARBARA [moving nearer to the drum] Have we got money enough to keep the shelter open?

MRS. BAINES I hope we shall have enough to keep all the shelters open. Lord Saxmundham has promised us five thousand pounds —

BARBARA Hooray!

JENNY Glory!

MRS. BAINES — if —

BARBARA “If!” If what?

MRS. BAINES — if five other gentlemen will give a thousand each to make it up to ten thousand.

BARBARA Who is Lord Saxmundham? I never heard of him.

UNDERSHAFT [who has pricked up his ears at the peer’s name, and is now watching BARBARA curiously] A new creation, my dear. You have heard of Sir Horace Bodger?

BARBARA Bodger! Do you mean the distiller? Bodger’s whisky!

UNDERSHAFT That is the man. He is one of the greatest of our public benefactors. He restored the cathedral at Haking ton. They made him a baronet for that. He gave half a million to the funds of his party: they made him a baron for that.

SHIRLEY What will they give him for the five thousand?

UNDERSHAFT There is nothing left to give him . So the five thousand, I should think, is to save his soul.

MRS. BAINES Heaven grant it may! Oh Mr. Undershaft, you have some very rich friends. Cant you help us towards the other five thousand? We are going to hold a great meeting this afternoon at the Assembly Hall in the Mile End Road. If I could only announce that one gentleman had come forward to support Lord Saxmundham, others would follow. Dont you know somebody? couldnt you? wouldnt you? [her eyes fill with tears] oh, think of those poor people, Mr. Undershaft: think of how much it means to them, and how little to a great man like you.

UNDERSHAFT [sardonicalty gallant] Mrs. Baines: you are irresistible. I cant disappoint you; and I cant deny myself the satisfaction of making Bodger pay up. You shall have your five thousand pounds.

MRS. BAINES Thank God!

UNDERSHAFT You dont thank m e?

MRS. BAINES Oh sir, dont try to be cynical: dont be ashamed of being a good man. The Lord will bless you abundantly; and our prayers will be like a strong fortification round you all the days of your life. [With a touch of caution. ] You will let me have the cheque to shew at the meeting, wont you? Jenny: go in and fetch a pen and ink. [ JENNY runs to the shelter door. ]

UNDERSHAFT Do not disturb Miss Hill: I have a fountain pen. [ JENNY halts. He sits at the table and writes the cheque. CUSINS rises to make more room for him. They all watch him silentty.]

BILL [cynically, aside to BARBARA, his voice and accent horribly debased] Wot prawce Selvytion nah?

BARBARA Stop. [UNDERSHAFT stops writing: they all turn to her in surprise. ] Mrs. Baines: are you really going to take this money?

MRS. BAINES [astonished] Why not, dear?

BARBARA Why not! Do you know what my father is? Have you forgotten that Lord Saxmundham is Bodger the whisky man? Do you remember how we implored the County Council to stop him from writing Bodger’s Whisky in letters of fire against the sky; so that the poor drink-ruined creatures on the embankment could not wake up from their snatches of sleep without being reminded of their deadly thirst by that wicked sky sign? Do you know that the worst thing I have had to fight here is not the devil, but Bodger, Bodger, Bodger, with his whisky, his distilleries, and his tied houses? [63] Pubs owned by the breweries or distilleries that supply them. Are you going to make our shelter another tied house for him, and ask me to keep it?

BILL Rotten drunken whisky it is too.

MRS. BAINES Dear Barbara: Lord Saxmundham has a soul to be saved like any of us. If heaven has found the way to make a good use of his money, are we to set ourselves up against the answer to our prayers?

BARBARA I know he has a soul to be saved. Let him come down here; and I’ll do my best to help him to his salvation. But he wants to send his cheque down to buy us, and go on being as wicked as ever.

UNDERSHAFT [with a reasonableness which CUSINS alone perceives to be ironical] My dear Barbara: alcohol is a very necessary article. It heals the sick —

BARBARA It does nothing of the sort.

UNDERSHAFT Well, it assists the doctor: that is perhaps a less questionable way of putting it. It makes life bearable to millions of people who could not endure their existence if they were quite sober. It enables Parliament to do things at eleven at night that no sane person would do at eleven in the morning. Is it Bodger’s fault that this inestimable gift is deplorably abused by less than one per cent of the poor? [He turns again to the table; signs the cheque; and crosses it.]

MRS. BAINES Barbara: will there be less drinking or more if all those poor souls we are saving come to-morrow and find the doors of our shelters shut in their faces? Lord Saxmundham gives us the money to stop drinking — to take his own business from him.

CUSINS [impishly] Pure self-sacrifice on Bodger’s part, clearly! Bless dear Bodger! [BARBARA almost breaks down as ADOLPHUS, too, fails her. ]

UNDERSHAFT [ tearing out the cheque and pocketing the book as he rises and goes past CUSINS to MRS. BAINES] I also, Mrs. Baines, may claim a little disinterestedness. Think of my business! think of the widows and orphans! the men and lads torn to pieces with shrapnel and poisoned with lyddite [64] An explosive. [MRS. BAINES shrinks; but he goes on remorsely]! the oceans of blood, not one drop of which is shed in a really just cause! the ravaged crops! the peaceful peasants forced, women and men, to till their fields under the fire of opposing armies on pain of starvation! the bad blood of the fierce little cowards at home who egg on others to fight for the gratification of their national vanity! All this makes money for me: I am never richer, never busier than when the papers are full of it. Well, it is your work to preach peace on earth and goodwill to men. [MRS. BAINES’s face lights up again.] Every convert you make is a vote against war. [Her lips move in prayer. ] Yet I give you this money to help you to hasten my own commercial ruin. [He gives her the cheque. ]

CUSINS [mounting the form in an ecstasy of mischief ] The millennium will be inaugurated by the unselfishness of Undershaft and Bodger. Oh be joyful! [He takes the drumsticks from his pockets and flourishes them.]