ore, naked, into the ring with fortune--Macaire, how few would do it!
But you, Macaire, you are compacted of more subtile clay. No cheap
immediate pilfering: no retail trade of petty larceny; but swoop at the
heart of the position, and clutch all!

BERTRAND (_at his shoulder_). Halves!

MACAIRE. Halves? (_He locks the box._) Bertrand, I am a father.
(_Replaces box in office._)

BERTRAND (_looking after him_). Well, I--am--damned!

DROP

ACT II

_When the curtain rises, the night has come. A hanging cluster of
lighted lamps over each table, R. and L. MACAIRE, R., smoking a
cigarette; BERTRAND, L., with a churchwarden: each with bottle and
glass_

SCENE I

MACAIRE, BERTRAND

MACAIRE. Bertrand, I am content: a child might play with me. Does your
pipe draw well?

BERTRAND. Like a factory chimney. This is my notion of life: liquor, a
chair, a table to put my feet on, a fine clean pipe, and no police.

MACAIRE. Bertrand, do you see these changing exhalations do you see
these blue rings and spirals, weaving their dance, like a round of
fairies, on the footless air?

BERTRAND. I see 'em right enough.

MACAIRE. Man of little vision, expound me these meteors! What do they
signify, O wooden-head? Clod, of what do they consist?

BERTRAND. Damned bad tobacco.

MACAIRE. I will give you a little course of science. Everything,
Bertrand (much as it may surprise you), has three states: a vapour, a
liquid, a solid. These are fortune in the vapour: these are ideas. What
are ideas? the protoplasm of wealth. To your head--which, by the way, is
solid, Bertrand--what are they but foul air? To mine, to my prehensile
and constructive intellects, see, as I grasp and work them, to what
lineaments of the future they transform themselves: a palace, a
barouche, a pair of luminous footmen, plate, wine, respect, and to be
honest!

BERTRAND. But what's the sense in honesty?

MACAIRE. The sense? You see me: Macaire: elegant, immoral, invincible in
cunning; well, Bertrand, much as it may surprise you, I am simply damned
by my dishonesty.

BERTRAND. No!

MACAIRE. The honest man, Bertrand, that's God's noblest work. He carries
the bag, my boy. Would you have me define honesty? the strategic point
for theft. Bertrand, if I'd three hundred a year, I'd be honest
to-morrow.

BERTRAND. Ah! don't you wish you may get it!

MACAIRE. Bertrand, I will bet you my head against your own--the longest
odds I can i