st killed nearly a month ago,
and not a word do I hear of it until I get that message in your house
yesterday! Then comes this other telegram this morning. What's to be
said about a government capable of such inefficiency? Of course the
chances of his landing today are small, but I can't leave for New York
until tonight because that same government sends a labour investigator
here to pry into my affairs, and make a preliminary report. They're
going to decide whether or not I shall keep my property or hand it over
to them! And whom do they send? Not a business man, who's had practical
experience with labour, but a professor out of some university,--a
theorist!

DR. JONATHAN. Awkward people, these professors. But what would you do
about it, Asher? Wall up the universities?

ASHER. Their trustees, who are business men, should forbid professors
meddling in government and politics. This fellow had the impudence to
tell me to my face that my own workmen, whom I am paying, aren't working
for me. I'm only supposed to be supplying the capital. We talk about
Germany being an autocracy it's nothing to what this country has become!

DR. JONATHAN (smiling). An autocracy of professors instead of business
men. Well, every dog has his day. And George is coming home.

ASHER. And what is there left to hand over to him if he lives? What
future has the Pindar Shops,--which I have spent my life to build up?

DR. JONATHAN. If George lives, as we hope, you need not worry about the
future of the Pindar Shops, I think.

AUGUSTA. If God will only spare him!

ASHER. I guess I've about got to the point where I don't believe that a
God exists.

(A flash and a loud peal of thunder.)

AUGUSTA. Asher

ASHER. Then let Him strike me!

(He hurries abruptly out of the door, left.)

AUGUSTA (after a silence). During all the years of our married life, he
has never said such a thing as that. Asher an atheist!

DR. JONATHAN. So was Job, Augusta,--for a while.

AUGUSTA (avoiding DR. JONATHAN'S glance, and beginning to knit). You
wanted to speak to me, Jonathan?

(The MAID enters, lower right.)

MAID. Timothy Farrell, ma'am.

(Exit maid, enter TIMOTHY FARRELL.)

AUGUSTA. I'm afraid Mr. Pindar can't see you just now, Timothy.

TIMOTHY. It's you I've come to see, ma'am, if you'll bear with me,--who
once took an interest in Minnie.

AUGUSTA. It is true that I once took an interest in her, Timothy, but
I'm afraid I have lost it