rnabas; but he is recognizably the
same man. He does not look a day over fifty, and is very well preserved
even at that; but his boyishness of manner is quite gone: he now has
complete authority and self-possession: in fact the President is a
little afraid of him; and it seems quite natural and inevitable that he
should speak fast._

THE ARCHBISHOP. Good day, Mr President.

BURGE-LUBIN. Good day, Mr Archbishop. Be seated.

THE ARCHBISHOP [_sitting down between them_] Good day, Mr Accountant
General.

BARNABAS [_malevolently_] Good day to you. I have a question to put to
you, if you don't mind.

THE ARCHBISHOP [_looking curiously at him, jarred by his uncivil tone_]
Certainly. What is it?

BARNABAS. What is your definition of a thief?

THE ARCHBISHOP. Rather an old-fashioned word, is it not?

BARNABAS. It survives officially in my department.

THE ARCHBISHOP. Our departments are full of survivals. Look at my tie!
my apron! my boots! They are all mere survivals; yet it seems that
without them I cannot be a proper Archbishop.

BARNABAS. Indeed! Well, in my department the word thief survives,
because in the community the thing thief survives. And a very despicable
and dishonorable thing he is, too.

THE ARCHBISHOP [_coolly_] I daresay.

BARNABAS. In my department, sir, a thief is a person who lives longer
than the statutory expectation of life entitles him to, and goes on
drawing public money when, if he were an honest man, he would be dead.

THE ARCHBISHOP. Then let me say, sir, that your department does not
understand its own business. If you have miscalculated the duration of
human life, that is not the fault of the persons whose longevity you
have miscalculated. And if they continue to work and produce, they pay
their way, even if they live two or three centuries.

BARNABAS. I know nothing about their working and producing. That is not
the business of my department. I am concerned with their expectation of
life; and I say that no man has any right to go on living and drawing
money when he ought to be dead.

THE ARCHBISHOP. You do not comprehend the relation between income and
production.

BARNABAS. I understand my own department.

THE ARCHBISHOP. That is not enough. Your department is part of a
synthesis which embraces all the departments.

BURGE-LUBIN. Synthesis! This is an intellectual difficulty. This is a
job for Confucius. I heard him use that very word the other day; and I
wondered what the