ke to, but because the
soul deep down in them will know that they must, if the world is to be
saved.

LUBIN [_turning to Franklyn and patting him almost paternally_] Well,
my dear Barnabas, for the last thirty years the post has brought me at
least once a week a plan from some crank or other for the establishment
of the millennium. I think you are the maddest of all the cranks; but
you are much the most interesting. I am conscious of a very curious
mixture of relief and disappointment in finding that your plan is all
moonshine, and that you have nothing practical to offer us. But what
a pity! It is such a fascinating idea! I think you are too hard on us
practical men; but there are men in every Government, even on the Front
Bench, who deserve all you say. And now, before dropping the subject,
may I put just one question to you? An idle question, since nothing can
come of it; but still--

FRANKLYN. Ask your question.

LUBIN. Why do you fix three hundred years as the exact figure?

FRANKLYN. Because we must fix some figure. Less would not be enough; and
more would be more than we dare as yet face.

LUBIN. Pooh! I am quite prepared to face three thousand, not to say
three million.

CONRAD. Yes, because you don't believe you Will be called on to make
good your word.

FRANKLYN [_gently_] Also, perhaps, because you have never been troubled
much by vision of the future.

BURGE [_with intense conviction_] The future does not exist for Henry
Hopkins Lubin.

LUBIN. If by the future you mean the millennial delusions which you
use as a bunch of carrots to lure the uneducated British donkey to the
polling booth to vote for you, it certainly does not.

SURGE. I can see the future not only because, if I may say so in all
humility, I have been gifted with a certain power of spiritual vision,
but because I have practised as a solicitor. A solicitor has to advise
families. He has to think of the future and know the past. His office is
the real modern confessional. Among other things he has to make people's
wills for them. He has to shew them how to provide for their daughters
after their deaths. Has it occurred to you, Lubin, that if you live
three hundred years, your daughters will have to wait a devilish long
time for their money?

FRANKLYN. The money may not wait for them. Few investments flourish for
three hundred years.

SAVVY. And what about before your death? Suppose they didn't get
married! Imagine a girl living