ut the people
wouldnt listen to reason. Besides, I knew the Dutch wouldnt give him up.

SAVVY. Oh, don't start arguing about poor old Bill. Stick to our point.
Let these two gentlemen settle the question for themselves. Mr Burge: do
you think Mr Lubin is fit to govern England?

SURGE. No. Frankly, I dont.

LUBIN [_remonstrant_] Really!

CONRAD. Why?

BURGE. Because he has no conscience: thats why.

LUBIN [_shocked and amazed_] Oh!

FRANKLYN. Mr Lubin: do you consider Joyce Burge qualified to govern
England?

LUBIN [_with dignified emotion, wounded, but without bitterness_] Excuse
me, Mr Barnabas; but before I answer that question I want to say this.
Burge: we have had differences of opinion; and your newspaper friends
have said hard things of me. But we worked together for years; and I
hope I have done nothing to justify you in the amazing accusation you
have just brought against me. Do you realize that you said that I have
no conscience?

BURGE. Lubin: I am very accessible to an appeal to my emotions; and you
are very cunning in making such appeals. I will meet you to this extent.
I dont mean that you are a bad man. I dont mean that I dislike you, in
spite of your continual attempts to discourage and depress me. But you
have a mind like a looking-glass. You are very clear and smooth and
lucid as to what is standing in front of you. But you have no foresight
and no hindsight. You have no vision and no memory. You have no
continuity; and a man without continuity can have neither conscience nor
honor from one day to another. The result is that you have always been
a damned bad minister; and you have sometimes been a damned bad friend.
Now you can answer Barnabas's question and take it out of me to your
heart's content. He asked you was I fit to govern England.

LUBIN [_recovering himself_] After what has just passed I sincerely
wish I could honestly say yes, Burge. But it seems to me that you have
condemned yourself out of your own mouth. You represent something which
has had far too much influence and popularity in this country since
Joseph Chamberlain set the fashion; and that is mere energy without
intellect and without knowledge. Your mind is not a trained mind: it has
not been stored with the best information, nor cultivated by intercourse
with educated minds at any of our great seats of learning. As I happen
to have enjoyed that advantage, it follows that you do not understand my
mind. Candidly, I think