Magic

Act II

_The same room lighted more brilliantly an hour later in the

evening. On one side a table covered with packs of cards, pyramids,

etc., at which the_ CONJURER _in evening dress is standing quietly

setting out his tricks. A little more in the foreground the_ DUKE;

_and_ HASTINGS _with a number of papers._

HASTINGS. There are only a few small matters. Here are the programmes of

the entertainment your Grace wanted. Mr. Carleon wishes to see them very

much.

DUKE. Thanks, thanks. [_Takes the programmes._]

HASTINGS. Shall I carry them for your Grace?

DUKE. No, no; I shan't forget, I shan't forget. Why, you've no idea how

businesslike I am. We have to be, you know. [_Vaguely._] I know you're a

bit of a Socialist; but I assure you there's a good deal to do--stake

in the country, and all that. Look at remembering faces now! The King

never forgets faces. [_Waves the programmes about._] I never forget

faces. [_Catches sight of the_ CONJURER _and genially draws him into the

discussion._] Why, the Professor here who performs before the King

[_puts down the programmes_]--you see it on the caravans, you

know--performs before the King almost every night, I suppose....

CONJURER. [_Smiling._] I sometimes let his Majesty have an evening off.

And turn my attention, of course, to the very highest nobility. But

naturally I have performed before every sovereign potentate, white and

black. There never was a conjurer who hadn't.

DUKE. That's right, that's right! And you'll say with me that the great

business for a King is remembering people?

CONJURER. I should say it was remembering which people to remember.

DUKE. Well, well, now.... [_Looks round rather wildly for something._]

Being really businesslike....

HASTINGS. Shall I take the programmes for your Grace?

DUKE. [_Picking them up._] No, no, I shan't forget. Is there anything

else?

HASTINGS. I have to go down the village about the wire to Stratford. The

only other thing at all urgent is the Militant Vegetarians.

DUKE. Ah! The Militant Vegetarians! You've heard of them, I'm sure.

Won't obey the law [_to the_ CONJURER] so long as the Government serves

out meat.

CONJURER. Let them be comforted. There are a good many people who don't

get much meat.

DUKE. Well, well, I'm bound to say they're very enthusiastic. Advanced,

too--oh, certainly advanced. Like Joan of Arc.

[_Short silence, in which the_ CONJURER _stares at him._]

CONJURER. _Was_ Joan of Arc a Vegetarian?

DUKE. Oh, well, it's a very high ideal, after all. The Sacredness of

Life, you know--the Sacredness of Life. [_Shakes his head._] But they

carry it too far. They killed a policeman down in Kent.

CONJURER. Killed a policeman? How Vegetarian! Well, I suppose it was, so

long as they didn't eat him.

HASTINGS. They are asking only for small subscriptions. Indeed, they

prefer to collect a large number of half-crowns, to prove the popularity

of their movement. But I should advise....

DUKE. Oh, give them three shillings, then.

HASTINGS. If I might suggest....

DUKE. Hang it all! We gave the Anti-Vegetarians three shillings. It

seems only fair.

HASTINGS. If I might suggest anything, I think your Grace will be wise

not to subscribe in this case. The Anti-Vegetarians have already used

their funds to form gangs ostensibly to protect their own meetings. And

if the Vegetarians use theirs to break up the meetings--well, it will

look rather funny that we have paid roughs on both sides. It will be

rather difficult to explain when it comes before the magistrate.

DUKE. But I shall be the magistrate. [CONJURER _stares at him again._]

That's the system, my dear Hastings, that's the advantage of the system.

Not a logical system--no Rousseau in it--but see how well it works! I

shall be the very best magistrate that could be on the Bench. The others

would be biassed, you know. Old Sir Lawrence is a Vegetarian himself;

and might be hard on the Anti-Vegetarian roughs. Colonel Crashaw would

be sure to be hard on the Vegetarian roughs. But if I've paid both of

'em, of course I shan't be hard on either of 'em--and there you have it.

Just perfect impartiality.

HASTINGS. [_Restrainedly._] Shall I take the programmes, your Grace?

DUKE. [_Heartily._] No, no; I won't forget 'em. [_Exit_ HASTINGS.] Well,

Professor, what's the news in the conjuring world?

CONJURER. I fear there is never any news in the conjuring world.

DUKE. Don't you have a newspaper or something? Everybody has a newspaper

now, you know. The--er--Daily Sword-Swallower or that sort of thing?

CONJURER. No, I have been a journalist myself; but I think journalism

and conjuring will always be incompatible.

DUKE. Incompatible--Oh, but that's where I differ--that's where I take

larger views! Larger laws, as old Buffle said. Nothing's _incompatible_,

you know--except husband and wife and so on; you must talk to Morris

about that. It's wonderful the way incompatibility has gone forward in

the States.

CONJURER. I only mean that the two trades rest on opposite principles.

The whole point of being a conjurer is that you won't explain a thing

that has happened.

DUKE. Well, and the journalist?

CONJURER. Well, the whole point of being a journalist is that you do

explain a thing that hasn't happened.

DUKE. But you'll want somewhere to discuss the new tricks.

CONJURER. There are no new tricks. And if there were we shouldn't want

'em discussed.

DUKE. I'm afraid you're not _really_ advanced. Are you interested in

modern progress?

CONJURER. Yes. We are interested in all tricks done by illusion.

DUKE. Well, well, I must go and see how Morris is. Pleasure of seeing

you later.

[_Exit_ DUKE, _leaving the programmes._

CONJURER. Why are nice men such asses? [_Turns to arrange the table._]

That seems all right. The pack of cards that is a pack of cards. And the

pack of cards that isn't a pack of cards. The hat that looks like a

gentleman's hat. But which, in reality, is no gentleman's hat. Only my

hat; and I am not a gentleman. I am only a conjurer, and this is only a

conjurer's hat. I could not take off this hat to a lady. I can take

rabbits out of it, goldfish out of it, snakes out of it. Only I mustn't

take my own head out of it. I suppose I'm a lower animal than a rabbit

or a snake. Anyhow they can get out of the conjurer's hat; and I can't.

I am a conjurer and nothing else but a conjurer. Unless I could show I

was something else, and that would be worse.

[_He begins to dash the cards rather irregularly about the table.

Enter_ PATRICIA.

PATRICIA. [_Coldly_] I beg your pardon. I came to get some programmes.

My uncle wants them.

[_She walks swiftly across and takes up the programmes._

CONJURER. [_Still dashing cards about the table._] Miss Carleon, might I

speak to you a moment? [_He puts his hands in his pockets, stares at the

table; and his face assumes a sardonic expression._] The question is

purely practical.

PATRICIA. [_Pausing at the door._] I can hardly imagine what the

question can be.

CONJURER. I am the question.

PATRICIA. And what have I to do with that?

CONJURER. You have everything to do with it. I am the question: you....

PATRICIA. [_Angrily._] Well, what am I?

CONJURER. You are the answer.

PATRICIA. The answer to what?

CONJURER. [_Coming round to the front of the table and sitting against

it._] The answer to me. You think I'm a liar because I walked about the

fields with you and said I could make stones disappear. Well, so I can.

I'm a conjurer. In mere point of fact, it wasn't a lie. But if it had

been a lie I should have told it just the same. I would have told twenty

such lies. You may or may not know why.

PATRICIA. I know nothing about such lies.

[_She puts her hand on the handle of the door, but the_ CONJURER,

_who is sitting on the table and staring at his boots, does not

notice the action, and goes on as in a sincere soliloquy._

CONJURER. I don't know whether you have any notion of what it means to a

man like me to talk to a lady like you, even on false pretences. I am an

adventurer. I am a blackguard, if one can earn the title by being in all

the blackguard societies of the world. I have thought everything out by

myself, when I was a guttersnipe in Fleet Street, or, lower still, a

journalist in Fleet Street. Before I met you I never guessed that rich

people ever thought at all. Well, that is all I have to say. We had some

good conversations, didn't we? I am a liar. But I told you a great deal

of the truth.

[_He turns and resumes the arrangement of the table._

PATRICIA. [_Thinking._] Yes, you did tell me a great deal of the truth.

You told me hundreds and thousands of truths. But you never told me the

truth that one wants to know.

CONJURER. And what is that?

PATRICIA. [_Turning back into the room._] You never told me the truth

about yourself. You never told me you were only the Conjurer.

CONJURER. I did not tell you that because I do not even know it. I do

not know whether I am only the Conjurer....

PATRICIA. What do you mean?

CONJURER. Sometimes I am afraid I am something worse than the Conjurer.

PATRICIA. [_Seriously._] I cannot think of anything worse than a

conjurer who does not call himself a conjurer.

CONJURER. [_Gloomily._] There is something worse. [_Rallying himself._]

But that is not what I want to say. Do you really find that very

unpardonable? Come, let me put you a case. Never mind about whether it

is our case. A man spends his time incessantly in going about in

third-class carriages to fifth-rate lodgings. He has to make up new

tricks, new patter, new nonsense, sometimes every night of his life.

Mostly he has to do it in the beastly black cities of the Midlands and

the North, where he can't get out into the country. Now and again he

does it at some gentleman's country-house, where he can get out into the

country. Well, you know that actors and orators and all sorts of people

like to rehearse their effects in the open air if they can. [_Smiles._]

You know that story of the great statesman who was heard by his own

gardener saying, as he paced the garden, "Had I, Mr. Speaker, received

the smallest intimation that I could be called upon to speak this

evening...." [PATRICIA _controls a smile, and he goes on with

overwhelming enthusiasm._] Well, conjurers are just the same. It takes

some time to prepare an impromptu. A man like that walks about the

woods and fields doing all his tricks beforehand, and talking all sorts

of gibberish because he thinks he is alone. One evening this man found

he was not alone. He found a very beautiful child was watching him.

PATRICIA. A child?

CONJURER. Yes. That was his first impression. He is an intimate friend

of mine. I have known him all my life. He tells me he has since

discovered she is not a child. She does not fulfil the definition.

PATRICIA. What is the definition of a child?

CONJURER. Somebody you can play with.

PATRICIA. [_Abruptly._] Why did you wear that cloak with the hood up?

CONJURER. [_Smiling._] I think it escaped your notice that it was

raining.

PATRICIA. [_Smiling faintly._] And what did this friend of yours do?

CONJURER. You have already told me what he did. He destroyed a fairy

tale, for he created a fairy tale that he was bound to destroy.

[_Swinging round suddenly on the table._] But do you blame a man very

much, Miss Carleon, if he enjoyed the only fairy tale he had had in his

life? Suppose he said the silly circles he was drawing for practice

were really magic circles? Suppose he said the bosh he was talking was

the language of the elves? Remember, he has read fairy tales as much as

you have. Fairy tales are the only democratic institutions. All the

classes have heard all the fairy tales. Do you blame him very much if

he, too, tried to have a holiday in fairyland?

PATRICIA. [_Simply._] I blame him less than I did. But I still say there

can be nothing worse than false magic. And, after all, it was he who

brought the false magic.

CONJURER. [_Rising from his seat._] Yes. It was she who brought the real

magic.

[_Enter_ MORRIS, _in evening-dress. He walks straight up to the

conjuring-table; and picks up one article after another, putting

each down with a comment._

MORRIS. I know that one. I know that. I know that. Let's see, that's the

false bottom, I think. That works with a wire. I know that; it goes up

the sleeve. That's the false bottom again. That's the substituted pack

of cards--that....

PATRICIA. Really, Morris, you mustn't talk as if you knew everything.

CONJURER. Oh, I don't mind anyone knowing everything, Miss Carleon.

There is something that is much more important than knowing how a thing

is done.

MORRIS. And what's that?

CONJURER. Knowing how to do it.

MORRIS. [_Becoming nasal again in anger._] That's so, eh? Being the

high-toned conjurer because you can't any longer take all the sidewalk

as a fairy.

PATRICIA. [_Crossing the room and speaking seriously to her brother._]

Really, Morris, you are very rude. And it's quite ridiculous to be rude.

This gentleman was only practising some tricks by himself in the garden.

[_With a certain dignity._] If there was any mistake, it was mine. Come,

shake hands, or whatever men do when they apologize. Don't be silly. He

won't turn you into a bowl of goldfish.

MORRIS. [_Reluctantly._] Well, I guess that's so. [_Offering his hand._]

Shake. [_They shake hands._] And you won't turn me into a bowl of

goldfish anyhow, Professor. I understand that when you do produce a

bowl of goldfish, they are generally slips of carrot. That is so,

Professor?

CONJURER. [_Sharply._] Yes. [_Produces a bowl of goldfish from his tail

pockets and holds it under the other's nose._] Judge for yourself.

MORRIS. [_In monstrous excitement._] Very good! Very good! But I know

how that's done--I know how that's done. You have an india-rubber cap,

you know, or cover....

CONJURER. Yes.

[_Goes back gloomily to his table and sits on it, picking up a pack

of cards and balancing it in his hand._

MORRIS. Ah, most mysteries are tolerably plain if you know the

apparatus. [_Enter_ DOCTOR _and_ SMITH, _talking with grave faces, but

growing silent as they reach the group._] I guess I wish we had all the

old apparatus of all the old Priests and Prophets since the beginning of

the world. I guess most of the old miracles and that were a matter of

just panel and wires.

CONJURER. I don't quite understand you. What old apparatus do you want

so much?

MORRIS. [_Breaking out with all the frenzy of the young free-thinker._]

Well, sir, I just want that old apparatus that turned rods into snakes.

I want those smart appliances, sir, that brought water out of a rock

when old man Moses chose to hit it. I guess it's a pity we've lost the

machinery. I would like to have those old conjurers here that called

themselves Patriarchs and Prophets in your precious Bible....

PATRICIA. Morris, you mustn't talk like that.

MORRIS. Well, I don't believe in religion....

DOCTOR. [_Aside._] Hush, hush. Nobody but women believe in religion.

PATRICIA. [_Humorously._] I think this is a fitting opportunity to show

you another ancient conjuring trick.

DOCTOR. Which one is that?

PATRICIA. The Vanishing Lady!

[_Exit_ PATRICIA.

SMITH. There is one part of their old apparatus I regret especially

being lost.

MORRIS. [_Still excited._] Yes!

SMITH. The apparatus for writing the Book of Job.

MORRIS. Well, well, they didn't know everything in those old times.

SMITH. No, and in those old times they knew they didn't. [_Dreamily._]

Where shall wisdom be found, and what is the place of understanding?

CONJURER. Somewhere in America, I believe.

SMITH. [_Still dreamily._] Man knoweth not the price thereof; neither is

it found in the land of the living. The deep sayeth it is not in me, the

sea sayeth it is not with me. Death and destruction say we have heard

tell of it. God understandeth the way thereof and He knoweth the place

thereof. For He looketh to the ends of the earth and seeth under the

whole Heaven. But to man He hath said: Behold the fear of the Lord that

is wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding. [_Turns suddenly to

the_ DOCTOR.] How's that for Agnosticism, Dr. Grimthorpe? What a pity

that apparatus is lost.

MORRIS. Well, you may just smile how you choose, I reckon. But I say the

Conjurer here could be the biggest man in the big blessed centuries if

he could just show us how the Holy old tricks were done. We must say

this for old man Moses, that he was in advance of his time. When he did

the old tricks they were new tricks. He got the pull on the public. He

could do his tricks before grown men, great bearded fighting men who

could win battles and sing Psalms. But this modern conjuring is all

behind the times. That's why they only do it with schoolboys. There

isn't a trick on that table I don't know. The whole trade's as dead as

mutton; and not half so satisfying. Why he [_pointing to the_ CONJURER]

brought out a bowl of goldfish just now--an old trick that anybody could

do.

CONJURER. Oh, I quite agree. The apparatus is perfectly simple. By the

way, let me have a look at those goldfish of yours, will you?

MORRIS. [_Angrily._] I'm not a paid play-actor come here to conjure. I'm

not here to do stale tricks; I'm here to see through 'em. I say it's an

old trick and....

CONJURER. True. But as you said, we never show it except to schoolboys.

MORRIS. And may I ask you, Professor Hocus Pocus, or whatever your name

is, whom you are calling a schoolboy?

CONJURER. I beg your pardon. Your sister will tell you I am sometimes

mistaken about children.

MORRIS. I forbid you to appeal to my sister.

CONJURER. That is exactly what a schoolboy would do.

MORRIS. [_With abrupt and dangerous calm._] I am not a schoolboy,

Professor. I am a quiet business man. But I tell you in the country I

come from, the hand of a quiet business man goes to his hip pocket at an

insult like that.

CONJURER. [_Fiercely._] Let it go to his pocket! I thought the hand of a

quiet business man more often went to someone else's pocket.

MORRIS. You....

[_Puts his hand to his hip. The_ DOCTOR _puts his hand on his

shoulder._

DOCTOR. Gentlemen, I think you are both forgetting yourselves.

CONJURER. Perhaps. [_His tone sinks suddenly to weariness._] I ask

pardon for what I said. It was certainly in excess of the young

gentleman's deserts. [_Sighs._] I sometimes rather wish I could forget

myself.

MORRIS. [_Sullenly, after a pause._] Well, the entertainment's coming

on; and you English don't like a scene. I reckon I'll have to bury the

blamed old hatchet too.

DOCTOR. [_With a certain dignity, his social type shining through his

profession._] Mr. Carleon, you will forgive an old man, who knew your

father well, if he doubts whether you are doing yourself justice in

treating yourself as an American Indian, merely because you have lived

in America. In my old friend Huxley's time we of the middle classes

disbelieved in reason and all sorts of things. But we did believe in

good manners. It is a pity if the aristocracy can't. I don't like to

hear you say you are a savage and have buried a tomahawk. I would rather

hear you say, as your Irish ancestors would have said, that you have

sheathed your sword with the dignity proper to a gentleman.

MORRIS. Very well. I've sheathed my sword with the dignity proper to a

gentleman.

CONJURER. And I have sheathed my sword with the dignity proper to a

conjurer.

MORRIS. How does the Conjurer sheath a sword?

CONJURER. Swallows it.

DOCTOR. Then we all agree there shall be no quarrel.

SMITH. May I say a word? I have a great dislike of a quarrel, for a

reason quite beyond my duty to my cloth.

MORRIS. And what is that?

SMITH. I object to a quarrel because it always interrupts an argument.

May I bring you back for a moment to the argument? You were saying that

these modern conjuring tricks are simply the old miracles when they have

once been found out. But surely another view is possible. When we speak

of things being sham, we generally mean that they are imitations of

things that are genuine. Take that Reynolds over there of the Duke's

great-grandfather. [_Points to a picture on the wall._] If I were to say

it was a copy....

MORRIS. Wal, the Duke's real amiable; but I reckon you'd find what you

call the interruption of an argument.

SMITH. Well, suppose I did say so, you wouldn't take it as meaning that

Sir Joshua Reynolds never lived. Why should sham miracles prove to us

that real Saints and Prophets never lived. There may be sham magic and

real magic also.

[_The_ CONJURER _raises his head and listens with a strange air of

intentness._

SMITH. There may be turnip ghosts precisely because there are real

ghosts. There may be theatrical fairies precisely because there are real

fairies. You do not abolish the Bank of England by pointing to a forged

bank-note.

MORRIS. I hope the Professor enjoys being called a forged bank-note.

CONJURER. Almost as much as being called the Prospectus of some American

Companies.

DOCTOR. Gentlemen! Gentlemen!

CONJURER. I am sorry.

MORRIS. Wal, let's have the argument first, then I guess we can have the

quarrel afterwards. I'll clean this house of some encumbrances. See

here, Mr. Smith, I'm not putting anything on your real miracle notion. I

say, and Science says, that there's a cause for everything. Science will

find out that cause, and sooner or later your old miracle will look

mighty mean. Sooner or later Science will botanise a bit on your turnip

ghosts; and make you look turnips yourselves for having taken any. I

say....

DOCTOR. [_In a low voice to_ SMITH.] I don't like this peaceful argument

of yours. The boy is getting much too excited.

MORRIS. You say old man Reynolds lived; and Science don't say no. [_He

turns excitedly to the picture._] But I guess he's dead now; and you'll

no more raise your Saints and Prophets from the dead than you'll raise

the Duke's great-grandfather to dance on that wall.

[_The picture begins to sway slightly to and fro on the wall._

DOCTOR. Why, the picture is moving!

MORRIS. [_Turning furiously on the_ CONJURER.] You were in the room

before us. Do you reckon that will take us in? You can do all that with

wires.

CONJURER. [_Motionless and without looking up from the table._] Yes, I

could do all that with wires.

MORRIS. And you reckoned I shouldn't know. [_Laughs with a high crowing

laugh._] That's how the derned dirty Spiritualists do all their tricks.

They say they can make the furniture move of itself. If it does move

they move it; and we mean to know how.

[_A chair falls over with a slight crash._

[MORRIS _almost staggers and momentarily fights for breath and

words._

MORRIS. You ... why ... that ... every one knows that ... a sliding

plank. It can be done with a sliding plank.

CONJURER. [_Without looking up._] Yes. It can be done with a sliding

plank.

[_The_ DOCTOR _draws nearer to_ MORRIS, _who faces about,

addressing him passionately._

MORRIS. You were right on the spot, Doc, when you talked about that red

lamp of yours. That red lamp is the light of science that will put out

all the lanterns of your turnip ghosts. It's a consuming fire, Doctor,

but it is the red light of the morning. [_Points at it in exalted

enthusiasm._] Your priests can no more stop that light from shining or

change its colour and its radiance than Joshua could stop the sun and

moon. [_Laughs savagely._] Why, a real fairy in an elfin cloak strayed

too near the lamp an hour or two ago; and it turned him into a common

society clown with a white tie.

[_The lamp at the end of the garden turns blue. They all look at it

in silence._

MORRIS. [_Splitting the silence on a high unnatural note._] Wait a bit!

Wait a bit! I've got you! I'll have you!... [_He strides wildly up and

down the room, biting his finger._] You put a wire ... no, that can't be

it....

DOCTOR. [_Speaking to him soothingly._] Well, well, just at this moment

we need not inquire....

MORRIS. [_Turning on him furiously._] You call yourself a man of

science, and you dare to tell me not to inquire!

SMITH. We only mean that for the moment you might let it alone.

MORRIS. [_Violently._] No, Priest, I will not let it alone. [_Pacing the

room again._] Could it be done with mirrors? [_He clasps his brow._] You

have a mirror.... [_Suddenly, with a shout._] I've got it! I've got it!

Mixture of lights! Why not? If you throw a green light on a red

light....

[_Sudden silence._

SMITH. [_Quietly to the_ DOCTOR.] You don't get blue.

DOCTOR. [_Stepping across to the_ CONJURER.] If you have done this

trick, for God's sake undo it.

[_After a silence, the light turns red again._

MORRIS. [_Dashing suddenly to the glass doors and examining them._] It's

the glass! You've been doing something to the glass!

[_He stops suddenly and there is a long silence._

CONJURER. [_Still without moving._] I don't think you will find anything

wrong with the glass.

MORRIS. [_Bursting open the glass doors with a crash._] Then I'll find

out what's wrong with the lamp.

[_Disappears into the garden._

DOCTOR. It is still a wet night, I am afraid.

SMITH. Yes. And somebody else will be wandering about the garden now.

[_Through the broken glass doors_ MORRIS _can be seen marching

backwards and forwards with swifter and swifter steps._

SMITH. I suppose in this case the Celtic twilight will not get on the

chest.

DOCTOR. Oh, if it were only the chest!

_Enter_ PATRICIA.

PATRICIA. Where is my brother?

[_There is an embarrassed silence, in which the_ CONJURER

_answers._

CONJURER. I am afraid he is walking about in Fairyland.

PATRICIA. But he mustn't go out on a night like this; it's very

dangerous!

CONJURER. Yes, it is very dangerous. He might meet a fairy.

PATRICIA. What do you mean?

CONJURER. You went out in this sort of weather and you met this sort of

fairy, and so far it has only brought you sorrow.

PATRICIA. I am going out to find my brother.

[_She goes out into the garden through the open doors._

SMITH. [_After a silence, very suddenly._] What is that noise? She is

not singing those songs to him, is she?

CONJURER. No. He does not understand the language of the elves.

SMITH. But what are all those cries and gasps I hear?

CONJURER. The normal noises, I believe, of a quiet business man.

DOCTOR. Sir, I can understand your being bitter, for I admit you have

been uncivilly received; but to speak like that just now....

[PATRICIA _reappears at the garden doors, very pale._

PATRICIA. Can I speak to the Doctor?

DOCTOR. My dear lady, certainly. Shall I fetch the Duke?

PATRICIA. I would prefer the Doctor.

SMITH. Can I be of any use?

PATRICIA. I only want the Doctor.

[_She goes out again, followed by_ DR. GRIMTHORPE. _The others look

at each other._

SMITH. [_Quietly._] That last was a wonderful trick of yours.

CONJURER. Thank you. I suppose you mean it was the only one you didn't

see through.

SMITH. Something of the kind, I confess. Your last trick was the best

trick I have ever seen. It is so good that I wish you had not done it.

CONJURER. And so do I.

SMITH. How do you mean? Do you wish you had never been a conjurer?

CONJURER. I wish I had never been born.

[_Exit_ CONJURER.

[_A silence. The_ DOCTOR _enters, very grave._

DOCTOR. It is all right so far. We have brought him back.

SMITH. [_Drawing near to him._] You told me there was mental trouble

with the girl.

DOCTOR. [_Looking at him steadily._] No. I told you there was mental

trouble in the family.

SMITH. [_After a silence._] Where is Mr. Morris Carleon?

DOCTOR. I have got him into bed in the next room. His sister is looking

after him.

SMITH. His sister! Oh, then do you believe in fairies?

DOCTOR. Believe in fairies? What do you mean?

SMITH. At least you put the person who does believe in them in charge of

the person who doesn't.

DOCTOR. Well, I suppose I do.

SMITH. You don't think she'll keep him awake all night with fairy tales?

DOCTOR. Certainly not.

SMITH. You don't think she'll throw the medicine-bottle out of window

and administer--er--a dewdrop, or anything of that sort? Or a

four-leaved clover, say?

DOCTOR. No; of course not.

SMITH. I only ask because you scientific men are a little hard on us

clergymen. You don't believe in a priesthood; but you'll admit I'm more

really a priest than this Conjurer is really a magician. You've been

talking a lot about the Bible and the Higher Criticism. But even by the

Higher Criticism the Bible is older than the language of the

elves--which was, as far as I can make out, invented this afternoon. But

Miss Carleon believed in the wizard. Miss Carleon believed in the

language of the elves. And you put her in charge of an invalid without

a flicker of doubt: because you trust women.

DOCTOR. [_Very seriously._] Yes, I trust women.

SMITH. You trust a woman with the practical issues of life and death,

through sleepless hours when a shaking hand or an extra grain would

kill.

DOCTOR. Yes.

SMITH. But if the woman gets up to go to early service at my church, you

call her weak-minded and say that nobody but women can believe in

religion.

DOCTOR. I should never call this woman weak-minded--no, by God, not even

if she went to church.

SMITH. Yet there are many as strong-minded who believe passionately in

going to church.

DOCTOR. Weren't there as many who believed passionately in Apollo?

SMITH. And what harm came of believing in Apollo? And what a mass of

harm may have come of not believing in Apollo? Does it never strike you

that doubt can be a madness, as well be faith? That asking questions may

be a disease, as well as proclaiming doctrines? You talk of religious

mania! Is there no such thing as irreligious mania? Is there no such

thing in the house at this moment?

DOCTOR. Then you think no one should question at all.

SMITH. [_With passion, pointing to the next room._] I think _that_ is

what comes of questioning! Why can't you leave the universe alone and

let it mean what it likes? Why shouldn't the thunder be Jupiter? More

men have made themselves silly by wondering what the devil it was if it

wasn't Jupiter.

DOCTOR. [_Looking at him._] Do you believe in your own religion?

SMITH. [_Returning the look equally steadily._] Suppose I don't: I

should still be a fool to question it. The child who doubts about Santa

Claus has insomnia. The child who believes has a good night's rest.

DOCTOR. You are a Pragmatist.

_Enter_ DUKE, _absent-mindedly._

SMITH. That is what the lawyers call vulgar abuse. But I do appeal to

practise. Here is a family over which you tell me a mental calamity

hovers. Here is the boy who questions everything and a girl who can

believe anything. Upon which has the curse fallen?

DUKE. Talking about the Pragmatists. I'm glad to hear.... Ah, very

forward movement! I suppose Roosevelt now.... [_Silence._] Well, we move

you know, we move! First there was the Missing Link. [_Silence._] No!

_First_ there was Protoplasm--and _then_ there was the Missing Link; and

Magna Carta and so on. [_Silence._] Why, look at the Insurance Act!

DOCTOR. I would rather not.

DUKE. [_Wagging a playful finger at him._] Ah, prejudice, prejudice! You

doctors, you know! Well, I never had any myself.

[_Silence._

DOCTOR. [_Breaking the silence in unusual exasperation._] Any what?

DUKE. [_Firmly._] Never had any Marconis myself. Wouldn't touch 'em.

[_Silence._] Well, I must speak to Hastings.

[_Exit_ DUKE, _aimlessly._

DOCTOR. [_Exploding._] Well, of all the.... [_Turns to_ SMITH.] You

asked me just now which member of the family had inherited the family

madness.

SMITH. Yes; I did.

DOCTOR. [_In a low, emphatic voice._] On my living soul, I believe it

must be the Duke.

CURTAIN

In the 1600s, Balthasar Gracian, a jesuit priest wrote 300 aphorisms on living life called "The Art of Worldly Wisdom." Join our newsletter below and read them all, one at a time.