it doesnt act well,
like some people's plays. No, no, my friend Tarleton: to make
Democracy work, you need an aristocratic democracy. To make
Aristocracy work, you need a democratic aristocracy. Youve got
neither; and theres an end of it.

TARLETON. Still, you know, the superman may come. The superman's an
idea. I believe in ideas. Read Whatshisname.

LORD SUMMERHAYS. Reading is a dangerous amusement, Tarleton. I wish
I could persuade your free library people of that.

TARLETON. Why, man, it's the beginning of education.

LORD SUMMERHAYS. On the contrary, it's the end of it. How can you
dare teach a man to read until youve taught him everything else first?

JOHNNY. _[intercepting his father's reply by coming out of the swing
and taking the floor]_ Leave it at that. Thats good sense. Anybody
on for a game of tennis?

BENTLEY. Oh, lets have some more improving conversation. Wouldnt you
rather, Johnny?

JOHNNY. If you ask me, no.

TARLETON. Johnny: you dont cultivate your mind. You dont read.

JOHNNY. _[coming between his mother and Lord Summerhays, book in
hand]_ Yes I do. I bet you what you like that, page for page, I read
more than you, though I dont talk about it so much. Only, I dont read
the same books. I like a book with a plot in it. You like a book
with nothing in it but some idea that the chap that writes it keeps
worrying, like a cat chasing its own tail. I can stand a little of
it, just as I can stand watching the cat for two minutes, say, when
Ive nothing better to do. But a man soon gets fed up with that sort
of thing. The fact is, you look on an author as a sort of god. _I_
look on him as a man that I pay to do a certain thing for me. I pay
him to amuse me and to take me out of myself and make me forget.

TARLETON. No. Wrong principle. You want to remember. Read Kipling.
"Lest we forget."

JOHNNY. If Kipling wants to remember, let him remember. If he had to
run Tarleton's Underwear, he'd be jolly glad to forget. As he has a
much softer job, and wants to keep himself before the public, his cry
is, "Dont you forget the sort of things I'm rather clever at writing
about." Well, I dont blame him: it's his business: I should do the
same in his place. But what he wants and what I want are two
different things. I want to forget; and I pay another man to make me
forget. If I buy a book or go to the theatre, I want to forget the
shop and forget myself from