MRS BAINES. Heaven grant it may! Oh Mr. Undershaft, you have some
very rich friends. Can't you help us towards the other five
thousand? We are going to hold a great meeting this afternoon at
the Assembly Hall in the Mile End Road. If I could only announce
that one gentleman had come forward to support Lord Saxmundham, others would follow. Don't you know somebody? Couldn't you? Wouldn't you? [her eyes fill with tears] oh, think of those poor people, Mr Undershaft: think of how much it means to them, and how little to a great man like you.
UNDERSHAFT [sardonically gallant] Mrs Baines: you are
irresistible. I can't disappoint you; and I can't deny myself the
satisfaction of making Bodger pay up. You shall have your five
thousand pounds.
MRS BAINES. Thank God!
UNDERSHAFT. You don't thank me?
MRS BAINES. Oh sir, don't try to be cynical: don't be ashamed of
being a good man. The Lord will bless you abundantly; and our
prayers will be like a strong fortification round you all the
days of your life. [With a touch of caution] You will let me have
the cheque to show at the meeting, won't you? Jenny: go in and
fetch a pen and ink. [Jenny runs to the shelter door].
UNDERSHAFT. Do not disturb Miss Hill: I have a fountain pen. [Jenny halts. He sits at the table and writes the cheque. Cusins rises to make more room for him. They all watch him silently.]
BILL [cynically, aside to Barbara, his voice and accent horribly debased] Wot prawce Selvytion nah?
BARBARA. Stop. [Undershaft stops writing: they all turn to her in surprise]. Mrs Baines: are you really going to take this money?
MRS BAINES [astonished] Why not, dear?
BARBARA. Why not! Do you know what my father is? Have you
forgotten that Lord Saxmundham is Bodger the whisky man? Do you
remember how we implored the County Council to stop him from
writing Bodger's Whisky in letters of fire against the sky; so
that the poor drinkruined creatures on the embankment could not
wake up from their snatches of sleep without being reminded of
their deadly thirst by that wicked sky sign? Do you know that the
worst thing I have had to fight here is not the devil, but
Bodger, Bodger, Bodger, with his whisky, his distilleries, and
his tied houses? Are you going to make our shelter another tied
house for him, and ask me to keep it?
BILL. Rotten drunken whisky it is too.
MRS BAINES. Dear Barbara: Lord Saxmundham has a soul to be saved
like any of us. If heaven has found the way to make a good use of
his money, are we to set ourselves up against the answer to our
prayers?
BARBARA. I know he has a soul to be saved. Let him come down
here; and I'll do my best to help him to his salvation. But he
wants to send his cheque down to buy us, and go on being as
wicked as ever.
UNDERSHAFT [with a reasonableness which Cusins alone perceives to be ironical] My dear Barbara: alcohol is a very necessary article. It heals the sick—
BARBARA. It does nothing of the sort.
UNDERSHAFT. Well, it assists the doctor: that is perhaps a less
questionable way of putting it. It makes life bearable to
millions of people who could not endure their existence if they
were quite sober. It enables Parliament to do things at eleven at
night that no sane person would do at eleven in the morning. Is
it Bodger's fault that this inestimable gift is deplorably abused
by less than one per cent of the poor? [He turns again to the table; signs the cheque; and crosses it].
MRS BAINES. Barbara: will there be less drinking or more if all
those poor souls we are saving come to-morrow and find the doors
of our shelters shut in their faces? Lord Saxmundham gives us the
money to stop drinking—to take his own business from him.
CUSINS [impishly] Pure self-sacrifice on Bodger's part, clearly! Bless dear Bodger! [Barbara almost breaks down as Adolpbus, too, fails her].
