all the other scrapped experiments.

LUBIN [_rising and beginning to walk up and down the room with his
considering cap on_] I admit that I am impressed, gentlemen. I will go
so far as to say that your theory is likely to prove more interesting
than ever Welsh Disestablishment was. But as a practical politician--hm!
Eh, Burge?

CONRAD. We are not practical politicians. We are out to get something
done. Practical politicians are people who have mastered the art of
using parliament to prevent anything being done.

FRANKLYN. When we get matured statesmen and citizens--

LUBIN [_stopping short_] Citizens! Oh! Are the citizens to live three
hundred years as well as the statesmen?

CONRAD. Of course.

LUBIN. I confess that had not occurred to me [_he sits down abruptly,
evidently very unfavorably affected by this new light_].

_Savvy and Haslam look at one another with unspeakable feelings._

BURGE. Do you think it would be wise to go quite so far at first? Surely
it would be more prudent to begin with the best men.

FRANKLYN. You need not be anxious about that. It will begin with the
best men.

LUBIN. I am glad to hear you say so. You see, we must put this into a
practical parliamentary shape.

BURGE. We shall have to draft a Bill: that is the long and the short of
it. Until you have your Bill drafted you don't know what you are really
doing: that is my experience.

LUBIN. Quite so. My idea is that whilst we should interest the
electorate in this as a sort of religious aspiration and personal hope,
using it at the same time to remove their prejudices against those of us
who are getting on in years, it would be in the last degree upsetting
and even dangerous to enable everyone to live longer than usual.
Take the mere question of the manufacture of the specific, whatever
it may be! There are forty millions of people in the country. Let
me assume for the sake of illustration that each person would
have to consume, say, five ounces a day of the elixir. That
would be--let me see--five times three hundred and sixty-five
is--um--twenty-five--thirty-two--eighteen--eighteen hundred and
twenty-five ounces a year: just two ounces over the hundredweight.

BURGE. Two million tons a year, in round numbers, of stuff that everyone
would clamor for: that men would trample down women and children in the
streets to get at. You couldnt produce it. There would be blue murder.
It's out of the question. We must keep the actual secr