et to ourselves.

CONRAD [_staring at them_] The actual secret! What on earth is the man
talking about?

BURGE. The stuff. The powder. The bottle. The tabloid. Whatever it is.
You said it wasnt lemons.

CONRAD. My good sir: I have no powder, no bottle, no tabloid. I am not a
quack: I am a biologist. This is a thing thats going to happen.

LUBIN [_completely let down_] Going to happen! Oh! Is that all? [_He
looks at his watch_].

BURGE. Going to happen! What do you mean? Do you mean that you cant make
it happen?

CONRAD. No more than I could have made you happen.

FRANKLYN. We can put it into men's heads that there is nothing to
prevent its happening but their own will to die before their work is
done, and their own ignorance of the splendid work there is for them to
do.

CONRAD. Spread that knowledge and that conviction; and as surely as the
sun will rise tomorrow, the thing will happen.

FRANKLYN. We don't know where or when or to whom it will happen. It may
happen first to someone in this room.

HASLAM. It wont happen to me: thats jolly sure.

CONRAD. It might happen to anyone. It might happen to the parlor maid.
How do we know?

SAVVY. The parlor maid! Oh, thats nonsense, Nunk.

LUBIN [_once more quite comfortable_] I think Miss Savvy has delivered
the final verdict.

BURGE. Do you mean to say that you have nothing more practical to offer
than the mere wish to live longer? Why, if people could live by merely
wishing to, we should all be living for ever already! Everybody would
like to live for ever. Why don't they?

CONRAD. Pshaw! Everybody would like to have a million of money. Why
havnt they? Because the men who would like to be millionaires wont save
sixpence even with the chance of starvation staring them in the face.
The men who want to live for ever wont cut off a glass of beer or a pipe
of tobacco, though they believe the teetotallers and non-smokers live
longer. That sort of liking is not willing. See what they do when they
know they must.

FRANKLYN. Do not mistake mere idle fancies for the tremendous
miracle-working force of Will nerved to creation by a conviction of
Necessity. I tell you men capable of such willing, and realizing its
necessity, will do it reluctantly, under inner compulsion, as all great
efforts are made. They will hide what they are doing from themselves:
they will take care not to know what they are doing. They will live
three hundred years, not because they would li