BENTLEY. [in scared, sobered, humble tones as he is borne off]
What are you doing? Let me down. Please, Miss Szczepanowska--[they pass out of hearing].
An awestruck silence falls on the company as they speculate on Bentley's fate.
JOHNNY. I wonder what shes going to do with him.
HYPATIA. Spank him, I hope. Spank him hard.
LORD SUMMERHAYS. I hope so. I hope so. Tarleton: I'm beyond measure humiliated and annoyed by my son's behavior in your house. Ihad better take him home.
TARLETON. Not at all: not at all. Now, Chickabiddy: as Miss Lina has taken away Ben, suppose you take away Mr Brown for a while.
GUNNER. [with unexpected aggressiveness] My name isnt Brown.
[They stare at him: he meets their stare defiantly, pugnacious with sloe gin; drains the last drop from his glass; throws it on the sideboard; and advances to the writing table]. My name's Baker:
Julius Baker. Mister Baker. If any man doubts it, I'm ready for him.
MRS TARLETON. John: you shouldnt have given him that sloe gin. It's gone to his head.
GUNNER. Dont you think it. Fruit beverages dont go to the head; and what matter if they did? I say nothing to you, maam: I regard you with respect and affection. [Lachrymosely] You were very good to my mother: my poor mother! [Relapsing into his daring mood] But Isay my name's Baker; and I'm not to be treated as a child or made a slave of by any man. Baker is my name. Did you think I was going to give you my real name? Not likely. Not me.
TARLETON. So you thought of John Brown. That was clever of you.
GUNNER. Clever! Yes: we're not all such fools as you think: we clerks. It was the bookkeeper put me up to that. It's the only name that nobody gives as a false name, he said. Clever, eh? I should think so.
MRS TARLETON. Come now, Julius--
GUNNER. [reassuring her gravely] Dont you be alarmed, maam. Iknow what is due to you as a lady and to myself as a gentleman. Iregard you with respect and affection. If you had been my mother, as you ought to have been, I should have had more chance. But you shall have no cause to be ashamed of me. The strength of a chain is no greater than its weakest link; but the greatness of a poet is the greatness of his greatest moment. Shakespear used to get drunk.
Frederick the Great ran away from a battle. But it was what they could rise to, not what they could sink to, that made them great.
They werent good always; but they were good on their day. Well, on my day--on my day, mind you--I'm good for something too. I know that Ive made a silly exhibition of myself here. I know I didnt rise to the occasion. I know that if youd been my mother, youd have been ashamed of me. I lost my presence of mind: I was a contemptible coward. But [slapping himself on the chest] I'm not the man I was then. This is my day. Ive seen the tenth possessor of a foolish face carried out kicking and screaming by a woman. [To Percival] You crowed pretty big over me. You hypnotized me. But when you were put through the fire yourself, you were found wanting. I tell you straight I dont give a damn for you.
MRS TARLETON. No: thats naughty. You shouldnt say that before me.
GUNNER. I would cut my tongue out sooner than say anything vulgar in your presence; for I regard you with respect and affection. I was not swearing. I was affirming my manhood.
MRS TARLETON. What an idea! What puts all these things into your head?
GUNNER. Oh, dont you think, because I'm a clerk, that I'm not one of the intellectuals. I'm a reading man, a thinking man. I read in a book--a high class six shilling book--this precept: Affirm your manhood. It appealed to me. Ive always remembered it. I believe in it. I feel I must do it to recover your respect after my cowardly behavior. Therefore I affirm it in your presence. I tell that man who insulted me that I dont give a damn for him. And neither I do.
TARLETON. I say, Summerhays: did you have chaps of this sort in Jinghiskahn?
LORD SUMMERHAYS. Oh yes: they exist everywhere: they are a most serious modern problem.
GUNNER. Yes. Youre right. [Conceitedly] I'm a problem. And Itell you that when we clerks realize that we're problems! well, look out: thats all.
LORD SUMMERHAYS. [suavely, to Gunner] You read a great deal, you say?
GUNNER. Ive read more than any man in this room, if the truth were known, I expect. Thats whats going to smash up your Capitalism. The problems are beginning to read. Ha! We're free to do that here in England. What would you do with me in Jinghiskahn if you had me there?
LORD SUMMERHAYS. Well, since you ask me so directly, I'll tell you.
I should take advantage of the fact that you have neither sense enough nor strength enough to know how to behave yourself in a difficulty of any sort. I should warn an intelligent and ambitious policeman that you are a troublesome person. The intelligent and ambitious policeman would take an early opportunity of upsetting your temper by ordering you to move on, and treading on your heels until you were provoked into obstructing an officer in the discharge of his duty. Any trifle of that sort would be sufficient to make a man like you lose your self-possession and put yourself in the wrong. You would then be charged and imprisoned until things quieted down.
GUNNER. And you call that justice!
LORD SUMMERHAYS. No. Justice was not my business. I had to govern a province; and I took the necessary steps to maintain order in it. Men are not governed by justice, but by law or persuasion. When they refuse to be governed by law or persuasion, they have to be governed by force or fraud, or both. I used both when law and persuasion failed me. Every ruler of men since the world began has done so, even when he has hated both fraud and force as heartily as I do. It is as well that you should know this, my young friend; so that you may recognize in time that anarchism is a game at which the police can beat you. What have you to say to that?
GUNNER. What have I to say to it! Well, I call it scandalous: thats what I have to say to it.
