hot. Under the influence of his belief that
he was going to live three hundred years he became a changed man. He
began to tell people the truth; and they disliked it so much that they
took advantage of certain clauses of an Act of Parliament he had himself
passed during the Four Years War, and had purposely forgotten to repeal
afterwards. They took him to the Tower of London and shot him.

_The apparatus rings._

CONFUCIUS [_answering_] Yes? [_He listens_].

A WOMAN'S VOICE. The Domestic Minister has called.

BURGE-LUBIN [_not quite catching the answer_] Who does she say has
called?

CONFUCIUS. The Domestic Minister.

BARNABAS. Oh, dash it! That awful woman!

BURGE-LUBIN. She certainly is a bit of a terror. I don't exactly know
why; for she is not at all bad-looking.

BARNABAS [_out of patience_] For Heaven's sake, don't be frivolous.

THE ARCHBISHOP. He cannot help it, Mr Accountant General. Three of his
sixteen great-great-great-grandfathers married Lubins.

BURGE-LUBIN. Tut tut! I am not frivolling. _I_ did not ask the lady
here. Which of you did?

CONFUCIUS. It is her official duty to report personally to the President
once a quarter.

BURGE-LUBIN. Oh, that. Then I suppose it's my official duty to receive
her. Theyd better send her in. You don't mind, do you? She will bring us
back to real life. I don't know how you fellows feel; but I'm just going
dotty.

CONFUCIUS [_into the telephone_] The President will receive the Domestic
Minister at once.

_They watch the door in silence for the entrance of the Domestic
Minister._

BURGE-LUBIN [_suddenly, to the Archbishop_] I suppose you have been
married over and over again.

THE ARCHBISHOP. Once. You do not make vows until death when death is
three hundred years off.

_They relapse into uneasy silence. The Domestic Minister enters. She is
a handsome woman, apparently in the prime of life, with elegant, tense,
well held-up figure, and the walk of a goddess. Her expression and
deportment are grave, swift, decisive, awful, unanswerable. She wears a
Dianesque tunic instead of a blouse, and a silver coronet instead of a
gold fillet. Her dress otherwise is not markedly different from that
of the men, who rise as she enters, and incline their heads with
instinctive awe. She comes to the vacant chair between Barnabas and
Confucius._

BURGE-LUBIN [_resolutely genial and gallant_] Delighted to see you, Mrs
Lutestring.

CONFUCIUS. We are honored by your cel