er! But I want to serve my country. What else am I for? I
want to save my country from the Tories. They dont represent the people.
The man they have made Prime Minister has never represented the people;
and you know it. Lord Dunreen is the bitterest old Tory left alive. What
has he to offer to the people?

FRANKLYN [_cutting in before Burge can proceed--as he evidently
intends--to answer his own question_] I will tell you. He has
ascertainable beliefs and principles to offer. The people know where
they are with Lord Dunreen. They know what he thinks right and what he
thinks wrong. With your followers they never know where they are. With
you they never know where they are.

BURGE [_amazed_] With me!

FRANKLYN. Well, where are you? What are you?

BURGE. Barnabas: you must be mad. You ask me what I am?

FRANKLYN. I do.

BURGE. I am, if I mistake not, Joyce Burge, pretty well known throughout
Europe, and indeed throughout the world, as the man who--unworthily
perhaps, but not quite unsuccessfully--held the helm when the ship
of State weathered the mightiest hurricane that has ever burst with
earth-shaking violence on the land of our fathers.

FRANKLYN. I know that. I know who you are. And the earth-shaking part of
it to me is that though you were placed in that enormously responsible
position, neither I nor anyone else knows what your beliefs are, or even
whether you have either beliefs or principles. What we did know was that
your Government was formed largely of men who regarded you as a robber
of henroosts, and whom you regarded as enemies of the people.

BURGE [_adroitly, as he thinks_] I agree with you. I agree with you
absolutely. I dont believe in coalition governments.

FRANKLYN. Precisely. Yet you formed two.

BURGE. Why? Because we were at war. That is what you fellows never would
realize. The Hun was at the gate. Our country, our lives, the honor of
our wives and mothers and daughters, the tender flesh of our innocent
babes, were at stake. Was that a time to argue about principles?

FRANKLYN. I should say it was the time of all others to confirm the
resolution of our own men and gain the confidence and support of public
opinion throughout the world by a declaration of principle. Do you think
the Hun would ever have come to the gate if he had known that it would
be shut in his face on principle? Did he not hold his own against you
until America boldly affirmed the democratic principle and came to our