n he's alive, because if you did, you couldn't decently refuse him a
little gratitude; but you know that it doesn't matter a damn to him
what happens to his money after he's dead, and therefore you can take it
without feeling any gratitude at all.

CRAWSHAW. No, I shouldn't put it like that.

RICHARD (smiling). I'm sure you wouldn't, Robert.

CRAWSHAW No doubt you can twist it about so that--

RICHARD. All right, we'll leave that and go on to the next point.
Suppose a perfect stranger offered you five pounds to part your hair
down the middle, shave off your moustache, and wear only one whisker--if
he met you suddenly in the street, seemed to dislike your appearance,
took out a fiver and begged you to hurry off and alter yourself--of
course you'd pocket the money and go straight to your barber's?

CRAWSHAW. Now you are merely being offensive.

RICHARD. I beg your pardon. I should have said that if he had left you
five pounds in his will?--well, then twenty pounds? a hundred pounds?--a
thousand pounds?--fifty thousand pounds?--(Jumping up excitedly) It's
only a question of price--fifty thousand pounds, Robert--a pink tie with
purple spots, hair across the back, trousers with a patch in the
fall myself Wurzel-Flummery--any old thing you like, you can't insult
me--anything you like, gentlemen, for fifty thousand pounds. (Lowering
his voice) Only you must leave it in your will, and then I can feel that
it is a sacred duty--a sacred duty, my lords and gentlemen. (He sinks
back into the sofa and relights his pipe.)

CRAWSHAW. (rising with dignity). It is evidently useless to prolong this
conversation.

RICHARD (waving him dorm again). No, no, Robert; I've finished. I just
took the other side--and I got carried away. I ought to have been at the
Bar.

CRAWSHAW. You take such extraordinary views of things. You must look
facts in the face, Richard. This is a modern world, and we are modern
people living in it. Take the matter-of-fact view. You may like or
dislike the name of--ah--Wurzel-Flummery, but you can't get away from
the fact that fifty thousand pounds is not to be sneezed at.

RICHARD (wistfully). I don't know why people shouldn't sneeze at money
sometimes. I should like to start a society for sneezing at fifty
thousand pounds. We'd have to begin in a small way, of course; we'd
begin by sneezing at five pounds--and work up. The trouble is that we're
all inoculated in our cradles against that kind of cold.

CRA