ng to march to a
great meeting in the Assembly Hall at Mile End. Come and see the
shelter and then march with us: it will do you a lot of good. Can
you play anything?

UNDERSHAFT. In my youth I earned pennies, and even shillings
occasionally, in the streets and in public house parlors by my
natural talent for stepdancing. Later on, I became a member of
the Undershaft orchestral society, and performed passably on the
tenor trombone.

LOMAX [scandalized] Oh I say!

BARBARA. Many a sinner has played himself into heaven on the
trombone, thanks to the Army.

LOMAX [to Barbara, still rather shocked] Yes; but what about the
cannon business, don't you know? [To Undershaft] Getting into
heaven is not exactly in your line, is it?

LADY BRITOMART. Charles!!!

LOMAX. Well; but it stands to reason, don't it? The cannon
business may be necessary and all that: we can't get on without
cannons; but it isn't right, you know. On the other hand, there
may be a certain amount of tosh about the Salvation Army--I
belong to the Established Church myself--but still you can't deny
that it's religion; and you can't go against religion, can you?
At least unless you're downright immoral, don't you know.

UNDERSHAFT. You hardly appreciate my position, Mr Lomax--

LOMAX [hastily] I'm not saying anything against you personally,
you know.

UNDERSHAFT. Quite so, quite so. But consider for a moment. Here I
am, a manufacturer of mutilation and murder. I find myself in a
specially amiable humor just now because, this morning, down at
the foundry, we blew twenty-seven dummy soldiers into fragments
with a gun which formerly destroyed only thirteen.

LOMAX [leniently] Well, the more destructive war becomes, the
sooner it will be abolished, eh?

UNDERSHAFT. Not at all. The more destructive war becomes the more
fascinating we find it. No, Mr Lomax, I am obliged to you for
making the usual excuse for my trade; but I am not ashamed of it.
I am not one of those men who keep their morals and their
business in watertight compartments. All the spare money my trade
rivals spend on hospitals, cathedrals and other receptacles for
conscience money, I devote to experiments and researches in
improved methods of destroying life and property. I have always
done so; and I always shall. Therefore your Christmas card
moralities of peace on earth and goodwill among men are of no use
to me. Your Christianity, which enjoins you to resist not evil,
and to turn the