Their new departure in the history of the race is no
fraud. It does not even surprise me.

BURGE-LUBIN. Oh, come! Not surprise you! It's your pose never to be
surprised at anything; but if you are not surprised at this you are not
human.

CONFUCIUS. I am staggered, just as a man may be staggered by an
explosion for which he has himself laid the charge and lighted the fuse.
But I am not surprised, because, as a philosopher and a student of
evolutionary biology, I have come to regard some such development as
this as inevitable. If I had not thus prepared myself to be credulous,
no mere evidence of films and well-told tales would have persuaded me to
believe. As it is, I do believe.

BURGE-LUBIN. Well, that being settled, what the devil is to happen next?
Whats the next move for us?

CONFUCIUS. We do not make the next move. The next move will be made by
the Archbishop and the woman.

BURGE-LUBIN. Their marriage?

CONFUCIUS. More than that. They have made the momentous discovery that
they are not alone in the world.

BURGE-LUBIN. You think there are others?

CONFUCIUS. There must be many others. Each of them believes that he or
she is the only one to whom the miracle has happened. But the Archbishop
knows better now. He will advertise in terms which only the longlived
people will understand. He will bring them together and organize them.
They will hasten from all parts of the earth. They will become a great
Power.

BURGE-LUBIN [_a little alarmed_] I say, will they? I suppose they will.
I wonder is Barnabas right after all? Ought we to allow it?

CONFUCIUS. Nothing that we can do will stop it. We cannot in our souls
really want to stop it: the vital force that has produced this change
would paralyse our opposition to it, if we were mad enough to oppose.
But we will not oppose. You and I may be of the elect, too.

BURGE-LUBIN. Yes: thats what gets us every time. What the deuce ought we
to do? Something must be done about it, you know.

CONFUCIUS. Let us sit still, and meditate in silence on the vistas
before us.

BURGE-LUBIN. By George, I believe youre right. Let us.

_They sit meditating, the Chinaman naturally, the President with visible
effort and intensity. He is positively glaring into the future when the
voice of the Negress is heard._

THE NEGRESS. Mr President.

BURGE-LUBIN [_joyfully_] Yes. [_Taking up a peg_] Are you at home?

THE NEGRESS. No. Omega, zero, x squared.

_The President rapidly