in St
Paul's.

THE ARCHBISHOP. They almost always found the body. During the bathing
season there are plenty of bodies. I have been cremated again and again.
At first I used to attend my own funeral in disguise, because I had read
about a man doing that in an old romance by an author named Bennett,
from whom I remember borrowing five pounds in 1912. But I got tired of
that. I would not cross the street now to read my latest epitaph.

_The Chief Secretary and the President look very glum. Their incredulity
is vanquished at last._

BURGE-LUBIN. Look here. Do you chaps realize how awful this is? Here we
are sitting calmly in the presence of a man whose death is overdue by
two centuries. He may crumble into dust before our eyes at any moment.

BARNABAS. Not he. He'll go on drawing his pension until the end of the
world.

THE ARCHBISHOP. Not quite that. My expectation of life is only three
hundred years.

BARNABAS. You will last out my time anyhow: that's enough for me.

THE ARCHBISHOP [_coolly_] How do you know?

BARNABAS [_taken aback_] How do I know!

THE ARCHBISHOP. Yes: how do you know? I did not begin even to suspect
until I was nearly seventy. I was only vain of my youthful appearance.
I was not quite serious about it until I was ninety. Even now I am not
sure from one moment to another, though I have given you my reason
for thinking that I have quite unintentionally committed myself to a
lifetime of three hundred years.

BURGE-LUBIN. But how do you do it? Is it lemons? Is it Soya beans? Is
it--

THE ARCHBISHOP. I do not do it. It happens. It may happen to anyone. It
may happen to you.

BURGE-LUBIN [_the full significance of this for himself dawning on him_]
Then we three may be in the same boat with you, for all we know?

THE ARCHBISHOP. You may. Therefore I advise you to be very careful how
you take any step that will make my position uncomfortable.

BURGE-LUBIN. Well, I'm dashed! One of my secretaries was remarking
only this morning how well and young I am looking. Barnabas: I have an
absolute conviction that I am one of the--the--shall I say one of the
victims?--of this strange destiny.

THE ARCHBISHOP. Your great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather
formed the same conviction when he was between sixty and seventy. I knew
him.

BURGE-LUBIN [_depressed_] Ah! But he died.

THE ARCHBISHOP. No.

BURGE-LUBIN [_hopefully_] Do you mean to say he is still alive?

THE ARCHBISHOP. No. He was s