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 premature Socialist 
 
 UNIV. OF CALIF. LIBRARY. LOS ANGELED

 
 * ,
 
 BERTRAM AND His FACETIOUS ATDIENCE.
 
 'a WUttWst f torp 
 Su'ttt Juto & Corn? <&
 
 Copyrighted, 1003. 
 
 BY 
 MAIIY IVKS TODD 
 
 All Rights Reserved.
 
 AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED 
 
 TO 
 
 SOCIALISTS AND ANTI-SOCIALISTS. 
 M. I. T. 
 
 2133263
 
 a 
 
 premature Socialist
 
 "Humanity is growing in intellect, in 
 fiatience, in kindness, in love. 
 
 And when the time is ripe the People 
 ivill step in and take peaceful possession of 
 their own? 
 
 EL BERT HUB BARD.
 
 "Fair Freedom's ship, too long adrift 
 
 Of every wind the sport 
 Now rigged and manned, her course well 
 planned, 
 
 Sails proudly out of port; 
 
 We want no kings but kings of toil, 
 
 No crowns but crowns of deeds- 
 Not royal birth, but sterling worth 
 Must mark the man who leads." 
 
 Ella Wheeler Wilcox. 
 
 "On every side, constantly, the spirit of un- 
 rest and dissatisfaction is working to improve 
 the world, to develop mankind in mind and 
 body and to teach us how to use all the things 
 that were put into the world for our benefit. 
 
 "Every political movement that has given 
 the people more freedom has been the result of 
 discontent. The rulers have always been satis- 
 fied, as the trust organizers are now satisfied. 
 But every year or two the DISCONTENT OF THE 
 PEOPLE has been organized and progress to- 
 ward better things has gone on." Erom Edi- 
 torial Section of a Hearst Newspaper.
 
 a 
 
 'HE Handwriting on the Wall proclaims the 
 doom of unrighteous monopoly. Accord- 
 ingly, the rule of money, by money and for 
 money, draws to a close. It has proved an un- 
 holy one, hence its doom. 
 
 Why unholy? Because it has brought to pass 
 an era of hard materialism which is crushing the 
 life out of the people. Man cannot live by bread 
 alone, even if Monopoly furnished each poor crea- 
 ture with all the bread he could eat. Man is born 
 of God and heir of God-like ideals. These ideals 
 Monopoly ignores. Or if they assert themselves 
 in any way which threatens the rule of money by 
 money and for money, they are ruthlessly sup- 
 pressed. 
 
 But the God-man in man cannot be permanently 
 suppressed. Even if crucified he rises again. He 
 is rising now in the bosom of the people, prepar- 
 ing for an ascension into a higher realm of 
 thought and being than any yet occupied. 
 
 Monopoly, having so long and so completely 
 
 bound fast the American people, heirs of Liberty 
 
 and joint-heirs to a New World, it would not be 
 
 surprising if, when once thoroughly awake, they 
 
 5
 
 P R E F 'ACE 
 
 proceeded to rush with perhaps undue celerity in 
 the opposite direction, that of Socialism. 
 
 William M. Ivins, recently Republican can- 
 didate for Mayor of New York City, questions 
 whether the American people are not being driven 
 in the direction of Socialism by the Monopolists. 
 He admits that practically all the wealth of the 
 State all that should constitute the Common- 
 wealth has passed into private hands and with it 
 has passed the actual power that should be the 
 State's: the land, means of transportation and 
 communication by railway, by water, by electric- 
 ity; the means for supplying artificial light, the 
 function of banking, of insurance. 
 
 As Ouida's story, entitled "An Altruist," con- 
 tained some very suggestive thoughts on this sub- 
 ject, and as it has not received the attention it 
 merits, I have put many of her ideas together, 
 with a few of my own, in the form of a comedy. I 
 trust this play, which I have called "A Premature 
 Socialist," will be examined with care on the part 
 of thoughtful readers. I 
 
 The dramatic profession may not consider it 
 "worth while," under the impression that their 
 public merely want to be amused, not instructed. 
 
 Again, it is just possible that theatre-goers 
 may want a change of diet; a part of them. I 
 hope so. MARY IVES TODD. 
 
 6
 
 D 
 
 r a m a 
 
 t 
 
 * * 
 
 **r.< 
 
 t tt a> 
 
 WILFRED BERTRAM, a Premature Socialist. 
 
 LORD SOUTH WOLD, Bertram's Uncle. 
 
 LORD MARLOW, a J^iY. 
 
 FANSHAWE, Editor of the "Torch." 
 
 SIR HENRY STANHOPE. 
 
 THE DUKE, His Grace of Biddlington. 
 
 FOLLIOTT, a Lawyer. 
 
 SAM, Brother of ANNIE BROWN. 
 
 CRITCHETT, Bertram's Valet. 
 
 HOPPER, a Drunkard. 
 
 SMALL BOY. 
 
 Two CRITICS. 
 
 ANNIE BROWN, Engaged to BERTRAM. 
 
 CICELY SEYMOUR, in Love zvith BERTRAM. 
 
 LADY SOUTHWOLD, Bertram's Aunt. 
 
 LADY JANE RIVAUX. 
 
 MRS. BROWN, Mother of ANNIE BROWN. 
 
 BESSY, a Small Girl. 
 
 Some extra people for WILFRED BERTRAM'S 
 lecture and for LADY SOUTHWOLD'S house- 
 party. 
 
 A SPORTING GENTLEMAN and A PRACTICAL 
 POLITICIAN. 
 
 'A Couple of Policemen, Several Musicians, 
 Three Anarchists.
 
 Art n *
 
 A JJr? mature 
 
 ACT I. 
 
 SCENE I. The scene is WILFRED BERTRAM'S 
 rooms in Piccadilly, facing Green Park. The 
 time is five o'clock in the afternoon. The 
 audience is a number of men and women of 
 that class -which calls itself Society. Some 
 appear zvell bored, for WILFRED BERTRAM, 
 a Socialist, has been reading a badly copied 
 MS. for more than an hour. There are still 
 a formidable number of sheets unread, the 
 sight of which gives his audience much un- 
 easiness. 
 
 BERTRAM (reading} : Now that we have ob- 
 served how many advantages the people of The 
 New Republic or, what might well be termed, 
 The State of the Golden Rule will have over our 
 present capitalist regime, we shall proceed to dis- 
 cuss its elements of stability, as compared with 
 those which have passed, or are passing, off the 
 stage of humanity. 
 
 We have already seen that a government, car- 
 ried out as planned, will be truly a government 
 of all the people, by all the people, and for all the 
 people. Those of the past have been of the mi- 
 nority and for the minority. Those of to-day are 
 everywhere largely controlled by money. 
 
 The prime condition of stability in a state is 
 II
 
 r A PREM'ATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 that it should rest on a direct interest of the peo- 
 ple in the welfare of the whole. 
 
 It has been a fatal weakness of those "Com- 
 monwealths" of which the competitive system is a 
 normal part now giving place to the rule of 
 giant monopolies that each citizen had but a 
 sentimental and indirect interest in his govern- 
 ment; while his mind was mainly centered on 
 making a living; or given to heaping up coin 
 for the degrading end of becoming an autocrat. 
 
 So long as the capital of a country and its 
 economic, interests remain in the hands of private 
 persons, just so long governments are bound to 
 be corrupt and to cater to class interests ; to as- 
 sist in degrading labor and in unduly elevating 
 and becoming subservient to the rich. 
 
 In the New Republic, or the Socialist State, 
 every citizen will be both a Knight of Labor 
 and a Capitalist. Where all work and none shirk, 
 every one will be able to taste the sweets of 
 leisure and know 'the joys of a many-sided cul- 
 ture 
 
 (BERTRAM'S attention is rudely arrested by a 
 person in the audience muttering in confi- 
 dence to his walking stick:) 
 
 OLD GENTLEMAN : It's all rot ! 
 
 A PRETTY GIRL (sympathetically) : What a 
 shame, when he is so much in earnest ! 
 
 A CRITIC : Bores always are awfully in earnest. 
 
 LORD MARLOW : If he would only give us some- 
 thing to drink 
 
 A PRETTY GIRL (with a withering glance) : 
 You can get plenty to drink in the street. 
 
 12
 
 A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 BERTRAM (perceiving, at last, that he has been 
 zvearying his audience a knowledge which is 
 slozu to steal upon the teacher of mankind) : My 
 dear people, I mean, ladies and gentlemen, 
 if you are so soon weary of so illimitable a sub- 
 ject, I fear I must have failed to do it justice. 
 
 LORD MARLOW (who is so thirsty that his pa- 
 tience is exhausted) : So soon? Oh, hang it! We 
 came upstairs at half-past three, and you've had 
 all the jaw to yourself ever since, and it's past 
 five now and we're all as thirsty as dogs. 
 
 BERTRAM (ivitli a countenance expressing ex- 
 treme disdain) : I did not invite you, Lord Mar- 
 low. If I had done so I would have provided beer 
 and skittles for your entertainment. 
 
 LORD SOUTHWOLD (BERTRAM'S uncle a bald- 
 headed gentleman with a pleasant, ruddy coun- 
 tenance, in amiable haste) : Oh, I say, Wilfred, 
 come finish your address to us ; it is extremely in- 
 teresting. 
 
 ALL TOGETHER (with animation, now they are 
 aware that he is too much disgusted to go on) : 
 Immensely interesting ! 
 
 BERTRAM (in a tone intended to be apologetic, 
 but which is actually only aggressive, since it 
 plainly implies that his pearls have been thrown 
 before swine closing at the same time his manu- 
 script and notebooks) : I ask your pardon if my 
 infirmities have done injustice to a noble theme. 
 
 LORD MARLOW (exasperatingly) : Nothing 
 could be clearer than what you've said. Nobody 
 is to have anything they can call their own, and 
 
 13
 
 A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 everybody who likes is to eat in one's plate and 
 bathe in one's bath. 
 
 BERTRAM (with sententious chilliness} : At 
 theatres the buffoon in the gallery is usually 
 turned out, with the approval of the entire audi- 
 ence. Were I not in my own chambers 
 
 LORD MARLOW (laughs rudely) : I don't think 
 you could throw me downstairs. Your diet of 
 brown bread and asparagus doesn't make muscle. 
 
 A GUARDSMAN (on the next scat to him mur- 
 murs) : My dear fellow before women pray, 
 be quiet. 
 
 LADY SOUTH WOLD (coaxingly) : Do finish your 
 reading, Wilfred. Your views are so disinter- 
 ested, if they are a a a little difficult to carry 
 out as the world is constituted. 
 
 BERTRAM : Excuse me, I have trespassed too 
 long on every one's indulgence. It is, I believe, 
 altogether impossible to attempt to introduce al- 
 truism and duty into a society which considers 
 Lord Marlow's type of humanity as either whole- 
 some or ornamental. 
 
 LORD SOUTH WOLD (hurriedly) : I never knew a 
 lecture on socialism or anarchy I suppose they 
 mean about the same thing that didn't end in a 
 free fight. But we can't have one here, Wilfred, 
 there are too many ladies present. 
 
 THE DUKE OF BIDDLINGTON (a shabby little 
 old gentleman, doubled up in his chair, murmurs 
 doubtfully} : I don't see how your theories would 
 work, Bertram. 
 
 BERTRAM : Don't you, Duke ? Is there not such 
 
 14
 
 'A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 a proverb as Fais ce que dois, advienne que 
 pourraf 
 
 THE DUKE (nods his head as he admits} : 
 There is. But I am afraid it will land you in 
 Queer street sometimes. There's another old 
 saw, you know, "Look before you leap!" Safer 
 of the two, eh? Let me repeat, "Look before 
 you leap!" 
 
 BERTRAM : For the selfish, no doubt. 
 
 A LOVER OF PRACTICAL POLITICS : I think you 
 said that property was like a cancer in the body 
 politic. (Puts his glass in his eye to observe BER- 
 TRAM attentively.) 
 
 BERTRAM (with hauteur, angry that people 
 cannot even quote him correctly) : I said the con- 
 solidation and transmission of property was so. 
 
 A LOVER OF PRACTICAL POLITICS: Ah, it 
 seems to me the same thing. 
 
 LORD MARLOW : No more the same thing than 
 Seltzer and the Sellinger ! 
 
 A LOVER OF PRACTICAL POLITICS (humbly) : 
 Oh, indeed, forgive my stupidity. 
 
 BERTRAM (sententiously and with a gesture 
 implying that his indulgence to human imbecility 
 is inexhaustible, but sorely tried) : I had hoped 
 that you would have gathered from my previous 
 discourse how intense is my conviction that those 
 who possess property should give it up, gener- 
 ously, spontaneously, for the good of all, before 
 awaiting that inevitable retribution which will 
 fall on them if they continue to insult the Peo- 
 ple by their display of wealth, unearned and un- 
 justified; for the riches of the noble and the mil- 
 15
 
 A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 lionaire are as absolutely theft as any stolen 
 goods obtained by violence and fraud, and do 
 continually provoke the crimes which they so 
 savagely denounce and punish 
 
 LORD SOUTHWOLD: Humph! That's strong. 
 
 CICELY SEYMOUR (itith her usual charm) : 
 La Propriete c'est le vol, propri'c t'e d'autrui, oni; 
 niais pas la micnnc! 
 
 LORD MARLOW : If there's no flimsy anywhere 
 who'll breed the racers? 
 
 THE CRITIC: Who'll buy Comet clarets? 
 
 PRETTY GIRL: Who'll employ cooks? 
 
 SPORTING GENTLEMAN : Who'll keep up the 
 shooting? 
 
 ANOTHER CRITIC: Who'll build Valkyries? 
 
 DUDE: Who'll dance cotillions or go to "The 
 Flying Dutchman"? 
 
 BERTRAM (with dignity} : My friends, these 
 are mere frivolous jests on your part. When the 
 entire structure of our rotten and debased so- 
 ciety shall have been shattered there will, of 
 course, be no place in a regenerate world for 
 these mere foolish egotisms. 
 
 LORD SOUTHWOLD (irritated} : Foolish ego- 
 tisms ! Oh, Lord ! A good glass of wine a fool- 
 ish egotism? 
 
 THE DUKE (in alarm) : Do you mean you 
 want Local Option? I would not have come if 
 I'd known that. 
 
 BERTRAM (zvith irritation) : There is no ques- 
 tion of local option or of total abstinence. Duke. 
 If property were generally and duly distributed, 
 wine would be so, too; and if individualism 
 16
 
 A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 were duly recognized, you would no more dare 
 to interfere with the drunkard than with the 
 genius. 
 
 LORD SOUTH WOLD (hilariously} : African 
 sherry all around what a millennium! Tipplers 
 all over the place, and no lock-up to put 'em in ! 
 What an Arcadia ! 
 
 THE PRACTICAL POLITICIAN : Genius has fre- 
 quently been compared to inebrity, but I have 
 never known quite such a slap in the face given 
 to it as this. Max Nordau is deferential in com- 
 parison. 
 
 BERTRAM (addressing the DUKE, but glancing 
 at CICELY SEYMOUR) : Look, sir, at the utter de- 
 basement of our financial system. What are 
 banks except incentives to crime? What are 
 the Bourses, the Exchanges, or Wall Street, ex- 
 cept large seething cauldrons of sin? What are 
 the great speculating companies if not banded 
 thieves for the stripping of a gullible public? 
 What is the watch you wear, with its visible 
 chain glaring across your waistcoat, except a 
 base, mean, grinning mockery of the hungry 
 man who meets you in the street? 
 
 LORD MARLOW (taking out his watch) : My 
 conscience is clear in that respect. My watch is 
 a Waterbury, and wouldn't fetch the hungry 
 man a shilling if he pawned it. 
 
 LORD SOUTH WOLD (touching a steel chain) : 
 And my chain was poor Hector's collar and I 
 wear it in memory of him. How he'd thresh out 
 five acres of turnips before luncheon! We shall 
 never see his like. 
 
 17 
 

 
 'A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 BERTRAM (growing impatient} : Individually 
 you may wear Waterburys or dog-collars, but 
 each is nevertheless a symbol of inequality be- 
 tween you and the man in the street, who is 
 obliged to look at the church clock to see the 
 hour at which he may seek the parish dole. 
 
 LORD SOUTHWOLD (zvith satirical dignity} : 
 What profound philosophy ! What crimes one 
 may commit without knowing it ! 
 
 LADY JANE RIVAUX : If a watch be an un- 
 wholesome sign of bloated aristocracy, pray, Mr. 
 Bertram, what are our jewels? 
 
 BERTRAM (scornfully} : There are no words 
 strong enough to condemn the use of gems, 
 whether from a moral or an aesthetic point of 
 view. In a purified condition of society they 
 would, of course, become impossible abomina- 
 tions. 
 
 (For a moment there is a dead silence; the ladies 
 present being too horrified to speak; the 
 men grinning complacently.} 
 
 LADY JANE RIVAUX (recovering from her 
 first shock of surprise at such blasphemy, asks 
 zvith vivacity} : But just consider all the people 
 you would throw out of employment? The peo- 
 ple who dig for jewels, don't they dig? The peo- 
 ple who polish them, and cut them, and set them, 
 and deal in them ; the people who make iron 
 safes, and the patent locks, you throw them all 
 out of work? Surely that wouldn't be doing any 
 good? What would become of the miners and 
 lapidaries and jewelers and all the rest? 
 
 BERTRAM (smiles with pitying disdain} : Oh 
 18
 
 A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 my dear Lady Jane, your kind of reasoning is 
 as old as the hills and carries its own refutation 
 with it. All those workmen and tradesmen 
 would be liberated from labors which now de- 
 grade them, and would thus be set free for higher 
 work work worthy of being illumined by the 
 light of reason. 
 
 LADY JANE RIVAUX: What work? Would 
 they all be schoolmasters and governesses? Or 
 all authors and artists? 
 
 BERTRAM: What work? Such work as the 
 community might organize and distribute, such 
 work as might be needful for the general good. 
 When everyone will work, everyone will have 
 leisure. The poet will mow the meadow in the 
 morning and compose his eclogues in the after- 
 noon. The painter will fell trees at dawn and 
 at noon paint his landscapes in the forest. The 
 sculptor will hew coal in the bowels of the earth 
 for a few hours and come to the upper air to 
 carve the marble and mould the clay. The author 
 will guide the plough or plant the potato-patch 
 at sunrise and will have the rest of the day free 
 to write his novel or study his essay 
 
 LORD SOUTHWOLD (ruffling his grey hair in 
 perplexity} : Humph ! The precise use of wast- 
 ing Sir Frederick Leighton's time on a seam of 
 coal, and Mr. Swinburne's on a mowing ma- 
 chine, I don't exactly perceive. However 
 
 CICELY SEYMOUR (looking at BERTRAM 
 timidly) : Pierre Loti is your ideal, then. He 
 "has gone down to the deep in ships" before he 
 writes of sea life. 
 
 19
 
 'A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 BERTRAM (whose tones express regret 
 mingled with condemnation) : With his true and 
 profound altruism he should have gone before 
 the mast. 
 
 LADY JANE RIVAUX : I suppose our sex will 
 have to sweep and cook before we are allowed 
 to frolic. 
 
 LORD MARLOW (zvho has with difficulty kept 
 his mouth shut) : You'll have to produce a cer- 
 tificate that you have made and baked three 
 dozen pigeon pies before you'll be allowed one 
 waltz. 
 
 LADY JANE RIVAUX (in a lively manner) : 
 We shall sweep our own chimneys, clean our- 
 selves, and play the violin. We shall have to 
 cook our salmon before we're allowed to fish 
 for it; we shall have to roast our pheasants be- 
 fore we're allowed to shoot them, and 
 
 BERTRAM (interrupting with scant courtesy) : 
 I understood that those who did me the honor 
 to come here to-day brought open minds and 
 philosophical views to this meeting, or I should 
 not have invited you to discuss and consider the 
 best means for the educated classes to anticipate 
 the coming changes in the world. 
 
 THE DUKE: Why should we anticipate them 
 when they'll be so deucedly uncomfortable to all 
 of us? 
 
 LORD SOUTHWOLD: Yes, indeed, it'll be bad 
 enough to grin and bear 'em. 
 
 BERTRAM (playing wearily with his shut 
 notebook) : If you cannot see the theoretic 
 beauty of united and universal work, it is hope- 
 
 20
 
 A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 less to expect that you should desire its practical 
 adjustment to everyday life. 
 
 THE PRACTICAL POLITICIAN : Well, but it is 
 just the utter unworkableness of your system 
 which damns it in the eyes of rational men. Par- 
 don my saying so. 
 
 LADY SOUTHWOLD (coaxingly) : Give them 
 some tea, Wilfred; they are all growing cross. 
 
 BERTRAM (already cross} : As you please. 
 But it is to me absolutely frightful to see how 
 unconscious of your doom, and how indifferent 
 to the great movements of the day you all 
 
 THE DUKE (in an oratorical manner') : If 
 they are really great movements, they'll move 
 without us ; you can't stop an ice-berg or an 
 earthquake with your little finger. But there's 
 a good deal of grit in the old order still. Yes, 
 I'll have a cup of tea, Wilfred; I see you've got 
 it there. 
 
 BERTRAM (zvearily) : Critchett tea! 
 
 CRITCHETT (ivho is the perfection of all the 
 virtues of valctdom} : Yes, sir. 
 
 LORD MARLOW (wholly undisturbed by the in- 
 sults that have been heaped upon him calls 
 out) : And temperance drinks, Critchett! Lem- 
 ons divorced from rum, sterilized milk, barley 
 water, tartaric acid 
 
 CICELY SEYMOUR (stueetly) : How do you 
 reconcile your conscience to the debasing offices 
 which you employ Critchett to fill for you? 
 
 LADY SOUTHWOLD: Or to the fact of keeping 
 a Critchett at all? 
 
 21
 
 'A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 LORD MARLOW: Surely it's Critchett who 
 keeps him out of a strait-waistcoat. 
 (CRITCHETT hands tea and coffee and chocolate, 
 in a silver service with cakes, fruit and bis- 
 cuits. ) 
 
 LADY JANE RIVAUX: And all these pretty 
 things, Mr. Bertram? Surely they are the flesh- 
 pots of Egypt, and ought not to be here? 
 
 BERTRAM : They ought not, nor Critchett 
 either. 
 
 LADY JANE RIVAUX : Oh, he is such a delight- 
 ful servant; so noiseless, so prevenant, and so 
 devoted to you ; you would never find his equal 
 if you sent him away. 
 
 BERTRAM : No ; but for one man to serve an- 
 other is contrary to all principles of self-respect 
 on either side. 
 
 LADY SOUTHWOLD (cries out with impa- 
 tience} : How I wish you were small enough to 
 be whipped ! What a deal of good it would do 
 you ! 
 
 BERTRAM (smiling faintly) : Flagellation 
 was, I believe, most admirable discipline ; but we 
 have grown too effete for it. Our bodies are as 
 tender as our hearts are hard. 
 
 CICELY SEYMOUR (in a very soft voice) : I 
 have always thought that if everybody had ten 
 thousand a year nobody would ever do any- 
 thing wrong. 
 
 BERTRAM (looking at CICELY approvingly) : 
 You are on the right road, Miss Seymour. But 
 as we cannot generalize property, we must gen- 
 eralize poverty. The result will be equally good. 
 
 22
 
 LORD SOUTHWOLD (roars very loudly} : Good 
 Lord ! I never heard such a subversive and im- 
 moral doctrine in all my days! 
 
 BERTRAM (glancing pityingly at him} : And 
 yet it is based on precisely the same theory as 
 the one which you accepted when you passed the 
 Compulsory clause of the Parish Councils Bill. 
 
 LORD SOUTHWOLD (very angrily} : The Up- 
 per House passed that infamous bill. I was in 
 the minority against it. 
 
 YOUNG MAN (with an ingenuous counte- 
 nance} : But when everybody's got sixpence a 
 day and nobody sixpence halfpenny, surely 
 somebody '11 have a try for the illegal halfpenny, 
 won't they? It is human nature. 
 
 BERTRAM (very positively}: Certainly not! 
 Nobody will ever wish for an extra halfpenny, 
 because when inequality shall be at an end envy 
 and discontent will be unknown. Besides, if all 
 the property of the world was confiscated or re- 
 alized and equally distributed, the individual 
 portion would come more nearly to half a crown 
 a head per diem. On half a crown a head per 
 diem anyone can live 
 
 LORD SOUTHWOLD (sighs} : Oysters are three 
 shillings a dozen. 
 
 BERTRAM (with impatience} : Of course, if 
 you expect to continue the indulgence of an epi- 
 cure's diseased appetites 
 
 LORD SOUTHWOLD (sighing again} : It's the 
 oysters that are diseased, not our appetites. 
 
 BERTRAM (ignoring his uncle's nonsense} : If 
 I have made anything clear in my recent re- 
 23
 
 A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 marks it must surely be that Property is, in the 
 old copy-book phrase, the root of all evil ; the 
 mandrake growing out of t'.ie bodies of the dead, 
 the poisonous gas exhaling from the carrion of 
 prejudice, of injustice, and of caste. 
 
 LADY SOUTHWOLD (tuY/z impatience} : But my 
 dear Wilfred, yours is rank Communism. 
 
 BERTRAM (loftily} : You can call it what you 
 please. It is the only condition of things which 
 would accompany pure civilization. When, 
 however, I speak of half a crown a day, I use a 
 figure of speech. Of course, in a purely free 
 world there would be no coined or printed money, 
 there would be only barter. 
 
 LORD MARLOW (astonished} : Barter! I should 
 carry two of my Berkshire pigs, one under each 
 arm, and exchange them with you for a thou- 
 sand copies of your Age to Come. 
 
 CICELY SEYMOUR (dotibtfully} : I think barter 
 would be inconvenient. And what should I bar- 
 ter? I can't make anything. I should have to 
 cut off my hair and wait a year till it grew again. 
 (Everyone laughs, and BERTRAM even relaxes 
 his gravity.} 
 
 BERTRAM : I fear, Miss Seymour, that Solon's 
 self would give you all you wished for a single 
 smile. 
 
 smile. (Glancing from Miss SEYMOUR to his 
 company he says:} Ah, I came near forgetting 
 our Socialist Musicians. While you are in your 
 cups we will have them give us one of their 
 songs set to the well-known air of "Onward, 
 Christian Soldiers." 
 
 24
 
 A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 (BERTRAM disappears to return with tzvo seedy- 
 looking ^nd^vid^lals. During his absence the 
 same person who had remarked to his cane, 
 "It's all rot !" repeated his remark. The au- 
 dience laughs.*) 
 
 (BERTRAM takes his trio of musicians to a far 
 corner of the room ^vhere they quite disap- 
 pear behind a piano with uplifted cover. He 
 scats himself by the accompanist ready to 
 turn the sheets of music. The tune being 
 no novelty and the words indistinguishable, 
 for the most part, the audience proceed to 
 entertain themselves with pantomimic per- 
 formances. These become so funny, that, 
 now and then, there is an explosion of 
 laughter intermingled with ill-suppressed 
 giggling and snickering. When the music 
 stops the audience, to make up for bad be- 
 havior, cheer in a vigorous manner. BER- 
 TRAM is pleased and proceeds to introduce 
 his Socialist friends, right and left, and to 
 treat them to tea and cake. While thus oc- 
 cupied a small boy comes into the room, out 
 of breath, grinning, with several oblong 
 pieces of printed paper in his hand; he 
 pushes his way unconcerned between ladies 
 and gentlemen, and thrusts the papers at 
 BERTRAM.) 
 
 SMALL BOY : Here, mister, you must tone these 
 here down ; manager says as Fanshawe says as 
 the British Public .wouldn't never stand them 
 pars, he's marked at no time; and manager 
 
 25
 
 A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 says as I was to tell you Public is extra nervous 
 now 'cos o' that bomb at Tooting. 
 
 BERTRAM {taking the sheets in ill-humor and 
 tearing them across) : Mr. Fanshawe is well 
 aware that I never correct and I never suppress. 
 I forbid the production of the article in a muti- 
 lated state. (He hands the pieces to the boy.) 
 Bid Mr. Fanshawe return me my original copy. 
 
 SMALL BOY (looking frightened) : Who'll 
 pay for this here setting-up, sir, please, if proof 
 ain't to be used? 
 
 LORD SOUTH WOLD (amazed) : Did you say 
 Fanshawe? Do you mean the great Fanshawe 
 of the Torch? Can anything be possibly too 
 strong for him? 
 
 THE DUKE (who rather likes subversive opin- 
 ions, considering philosophically that he will be 
 in his grave before they can possibly be put into 
 practice) : Oh, my dear Wilfred, do let us hear 
 what you have said. It must be something ter- 
 rific! 
 
 SMALL BOY: What am I to tell the manager 
 about payin' for the setting-up of this here, if 
 type's to be broken up, sir? 
 
 BERTRAM (in extreme irritation) : Go out of 
 the room, you impudent little rascal. Critchett, 
 turn the boy out ! 
 
 LORD MARLOW (gets up and offers the boy a 
 plate of pound cake) : You are not civil to your 
 sooty Mercury, Bertram. He offers you at this 
 moment the most opportune illustration of your 
 theories. He comes on an errand of the intel- 
 lect, and if a somewhat soiled messenger, he 
 26
 
 'A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 should nevertheless be treated with the respect 
 due to a guardian of literary purity and public 
 morality. Sweet imp! refresh your inner man! 
 (The boy stuffs his mouth and grins.) 
 
 BERTRAM (very angry) : Are these chambers 
 mine or yours, Lord Marlow? 
 
 LORD MARLOW : Both yours and mine, or 
 neither yours or mine. There is no such thing 
 as exclusive possession. You have just told us 
 so. 
 
 BERTRAM (pointing with a stony stare at the 
 printer's devil) : Critchett! turn that boy out of 
 the room. 
 
 (CRITCHETT, reluctantly touching anything so 
 sooty, takes him by the collar and drives him 
 before him out of the room.) 
 
 LORD MARLOW (picking up the torn proofs') : 
 Who'll pay for the setting-up, asks this dear 
 child. Unused proofs are, I suppose, first cousins 
 to spilt milk and spoilt powder. Mayn't we read 
 this article? The title is suggestive "Fist- 
 right and Brain-divinity." Are you feloniously 
 sympathetic with the Tooting bomb? 
 (BERTRAM takes the torn proofs from him in ir- 
 ritation and throws them into the open door 
 of a cabinet.) 
 
 BERTRAM (significantly) : The essay is ad- 
 dressed to persons of intelligence and with prin- 
 ciple. 
 
 LORD MARLOW : But it seems that Fanshawe 
 had neither, if he failed to appreciate it? 
 
 BERTRAM : Fanshawe has both ; but there are 
 
 27
 
 r A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 occasional moments in which he recollects that 
 he has some subscribers in Philistia ! 
 
 THE DUKE (chuckling} : Fanshawe knows 
 where his bread is buttered knows where his 
 bread is buttered. 
 
 LORD MARLOW (with his usual want of tact} : 
 If Fanshawe doesn't publish it he won't pay for 
 it, will he? 
 
 BERTRAM (much annoyed at the turn the con- 
 versation has taken) : I do not take payment for 
 opinions. 
 
 THE DUKE (with a chuckle) : Most people 
 run opinions in order to get paid for 'em. 
 
 CICELY SEYMOUR: Why are you not in Parlia- 
 ment, Mr. Bertram? 
 
 BERTRAM (with the faintness of horror; in- 
 credulous that he can hear aright) : In Parlia- 
 ment! 
 
 CICELY SEYMOUR: Well, yes; have I said any- 
 thing so very dreadful? 
 
 LADY SOUTHWOLD : Oh, my dear Cicely ! Ever 
 since Wilfred came of age we have all been at 
 him about that; he might have had a walkover 
 for Sax-Stoneham, or for Micklethorpe, at any 
 election, but he would never even let himself be 
 nominated. 
 
 BERTRAM (shrugging his shoulders in inef- 
 fable disgust) : Two Tory boroughs ! 
 
 LADY SOUTHWOLD: You could have held any 
 opinions you had chosen. Toryism is a crepon 
 changeant nowadays; it looks exactly like Rad- 
 icalism very often, and only differs from it in 
 being still more outrageous. 
 28
 
 'A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 CICELY SEYMOUR: But perhaps Mr. Bertram's 
 objection is to all representative government? 
 
 BERTRAM (glancing gratefully at her) : Pre- 
 cisely so, Miss Seymour. 
 
 CICELY SEYMOUR: But what could you substi- 
 tute? 
 
 LADY SOUTHWOLD: Oh, my dear Cicely, read 
 his paper, the Age to Come, and pray spare us a 
 discussion before dinner. 
 
 CICELY SEYMOUR (with persistent interest in 
 the topic) : But what would you substitute? 
 
 THE PRACTICAL POLITICIAN : Yes, what would 
 you substitute? 
 
 (BERTRAM is out of temper; these acquaintances 
 and relatives worried him into giving this 
 exposition of his altruistic and socialistic 
 views and then they brought a fool with 
 them like MARLOW and have turned the 
 whole thing into a farce. To BERTRAM his 
 views are the most serious things in crea- 
 tion. He does not set them up like croquet 
 pegs for imbeciles to bowl at in an idle 
 hour.) 
 
 BERTRAM (patience all gone) : I would abolish 
 all Government. 
 
 CICELY SEYMOUR (astonished) : Oh! But how 
 would you control people? 
 
 BERTRAM : Sane people do not require to be 
 controlled. 
 
 CICELY SEYMOUR : But I have heard a man of 
 science say that only one person out of every 
 hundred is really sane. 
 
 BERTRAM (with eyes resting on her with ap- 
 29
 
 'A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 proval) : We are bad judges of each other's 
 sanity. But since you take an interest in seri- 
 ous subjects, I will, if you will allow me, send 
 you some back numbers of the Age to Come. 
 
 LORD SOUTHWOLD: Do you mean, Wilfred, 
 that an obtuse world is so ungrateful as to 
 leave you any back numbers at all? 
 
 BERTRAM (ignoring the interruption) : They 
 will show you what my views and the views of 
 those who think with me are, concerning the 
 best method of preparing the world to meet 
 those social changes which are inevitable in the 
 future, those rights of the individual which are 
 totally ignored and outraged by all present gov- 
 ernments, whether absolute, constitutional, or, in 
 nomenclature, republican. 
 
 LORD SOUTHWOLD: But why should we pre- 
 pare to meet them when they'll be so deucedly 
 uncomfortable to us if they do arrive, and why 
 should we trouble about helping them onward 
 if they are so cocksure in their descent on us? 
 I asked that question just now and you didn't 
 answer me. Does one avoid an avalanche in 
 the Alps, by firing a gun to make it fall sooner 
 than it would do if left alone? 
 (CRITCHETT is meantime engaged on the expul- 
 sion of the printer's devil by a back stair 
 . exit, and, a little girl, who has come in the 
 front entrance, pushes aside the portiere of 
 the door and stands abashed in the middle 
 of the room. She is eight years old, has a 
 head of red hair, and the shrewd, watchful 
 face of the London child; she carries a penny 
 30
 
 'A PREMATURE SOCIALIST, 
 
 bunch of violets; BERTRAM sees her entrance 
 with extreme displeasure, not unmixed with 
 embarrassment. ) 
 
 BERTRAM : What do you want here, Bessy? 
 
 BESSY (advancing and holding out her vio- 
 lets) : Annie sends these 'ere violets with her 
 love, and she's got to go to 'Ealin' for a big 
 border o' mustard an' cress, and please when'll 
 you be round to our place? 
 
 BERTRAM (extremely annoyed) : Run away, 
 my good child. You see I am engaged. 
 
 BESSY (persistent) : When'll you be round at 
 our place? The pal as lodges over Cousin Joe 
 hev given us tickets for Hoxton Theayter, and 
 Annie says as how she'd go if you wasn't comin' 
 in this evenin'. 
 
 BERTRAM (imperiously) : Run away, child. 
 Critchett! (CRITCHETT, who has returned with a 
 demure smile, guides the steps of the reluctant 
 BESSY from the room.} Why do you let these 
 children in, Critchett? (asks BERTRAM, as the 
 valet returns.} 
 
 CRITCHETT (humbly, as he lays the violets 
 dozvn on a cloisonne plate} : I beg pardon, sir, 
 but you have told me that you are always at 
 home to the Brown family. 
 
 BERTRAM : You might surely have more judg- 
 ment, after all your years of service. There 
 are exceptions to every rule. 
 
 LORD MARLOW (looking up to the ceiling in 
 scandalised protest} : Service ! service ! Hear him, 
 ye gods! This is the rights of the individual; 
 
 31
 
 A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 the independence of the unit ; the perfect equality 
 of one human being- before another! 
 
 CICELY SEYMOUR (looks over his shoulder at 
 him and remarks slightingly) : You are a great 
 tease, Lord Marlow. You make me think I am 
 in the schoolroom at Al fret on with my brothers 
 home from Eton for Christmas. Do you really 
 think that chaffing is wit? 
 
 LORD MARLOW: I am not chaffing, Miss Sey- 
 mour. I am in deadly earnest. This modest 
 bunch must hold a deal of meaning. Who are 
 the Brown family? Where is "our place"? 
 What is the meeting that must be postponed be- 
 cause a bloated aristocrat, rolling in ill-gotten 
 wealth, requires that corrupting luxury known as 
 mustard and cress? 
 
 (Everybody laughs, except CICELY SEYMOUR and 
 BERTRAM.) 
 
 LADY SOUTHWOLD: Yes, Wilfred, who are the 
 Brown family? 
 
 LORD SOUTHWOLD: To whom you are always 
 at home. 
 
 LORD MARLOW: And Annie sends buttonholes 
 with love. 
 
 BERTRAM (with icy brevity) : A perfectly re- 
 spectable young woman. 
 
 LORD MARLOW: And the respectable one's ad- 
 dress? Where is "our place"? I am seized 
 with an irresistible longing to eat mustard and 
 cress. I never did eat it but still 
 
 BERTRAM (eying him very disagreeably) : 
 The Browns are persons I esteem. I should not 
 
 32
 
 A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 give their address to persons whom I did not 
 esteem. 
 
 LADY SOUTHWOLD: My dear Wilfred! How 
 Socialism does sour the temper. 
 
 BERTRAM : Temper ! I hope I have too much 
 philosophy to allow my temper to be ruffled by 
 the clumsy horse-jokes of my acquaintances. 
 
 LADY SOUTHWOLD: But why are you always 
 at home to these Browns ? 
 
 (BERTRAM hesitates.) 
 
 LADY SOUTHWOLD (persistently) : Are they 
 acolytes? studies? pensioners? 
 
 LORD MARLOW : Is the respectable one pretty ? 
 Respectable ones so rarely are! (He takes the 
 inolets off the cloisonne plate.) A buttonhole to 
 be worn in Hoxton Theatre? It is an emblem 
 of the immortality of finance; for its commercial 
 value must be at least four farthings. If my 
 Waterbury watch offend the eye of eternal jus- 
 tice, this penny bunch must outrage it no less. 
 
 CICELY SEYMOUR: It is quite natural, I think, 
 that Mr. Bertram should have many friends in 
 those classes he considers so superior to his own. 
 BERTRAM (interrupting) : I do not say any 
 class is superior to any other. I say that all are 
 equal. 
 
 (There is now a great buzz of voices as people 
 rise and begin to bid one another adieu. 
 LADY SOUTHWOLD remains seated and be- 
 gins to nibble a caviare sandwich. She is 
 still curious about the socialist views of her 
 nephew. ) 
 
 LADY SOUTHWOLD: Do you mean to say, Wil- 
 33
 
 A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 fred, that anybody would pay taxes if they were 
 not obliged? 
 
 BERTRAM : Do not people, urged by conscience, 
 send arrears, unasked, to the Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer ? 
 
 LADY SOUTHWOLD: Well, they do certainly 
 now and then. But they must be very oddly con- 
 stituted people. 
 
 BERTRAM: Is conscience an eccentricity? 
 
 LADY SOUTHWOLD (shaking her head) : I can't 
 believe anybody would pay taxes if they weren't 
 obliged. 
 
 BERTRAM : But they do. There are these in- 
 stances in the papers. If moral feeling in the 
 public were acute and universal, as it ought to be, 
 every public duty would be fulfilled with prompti- 
 tude and without pressure. 
 
 THE DUKE (nodding very expressively} : 
 Your aunt's right, conscience-money can only 
 come from cranks. 
 
 LADY SOUTHWOLD: Come and dine with us, 
 Wilfred. We never see you now. I assure you 
 a good dinner changes the color of political opin- 
 ions to a wonderful degree. I am dreadfully 
 afraid that you are living on boiled soles and 
 carrot fritters. 
 
 BERTRAM (smiling slightly) : The carrot frit- 
 ters. I am a vegetarian. 
 
 LORD SOUTHWOLD: But we are justified in be- 
 ing carnivorous. Individualism justifies us. 
 
 BERTRAM (with uncivil sarcasm) : The croco- 
 dile has a right to its appetites, and the cur to 
 its vomit. Solomon said so, 
 34
 
 T A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 LORD SOUTHWOLD: Am I a crocodile or a cur? 
 
 LORD MARLOW : Do you keep Critchett on car- 
 rot fritters? And what does he have to drink? 
 Hot water is, I believe, the beverage which ac- 
 companies high thinking. 
 
 LADY JANE RIVAUX: And how do you recon- 
 cile your conscience and your creeds to keeping 
 Critchett at all ? 
 
 BERTRAM (with distant chilliness and proud 
 humility) : The leaven of long habit is hard to 
 get rid of; I entirely agree with you that I am in. 
 the wrong. To have a servant at all is an offense 
 to humanity ; it is an impertinence to the brother- 
 hood of our common mortality. 
 
 LORD SOUTHWOLD (grimly') : Our brothers 
 and sisters in the servants' halls pay us for the 
 outrage ; they take away our characters, read our 
 correspondence, and pocket twenty per cent, on 
 all our bills. 
 
 BERTRAM: Can you blame them? They are 
 the product of a corrupt society. No one can 
 blame them, whatever they do. The dunghill 
 cannot bring forth the rose. Your service has 
 debased them. The fault of their debasement 
 lies with you. 
 
 LORD MARLOW: But Critchett cannot be de- 
 based. He must, living in so rarefied a moral 
 atmosphere, be elevated above all mortal weak- 
 nesses. 
 
 BERTRAM (stiffly} : I can assure you I have 
 more respect for Critchett than for any member 
 of a St. James' Club. 
 
 35
 
 'A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 LADY SOUTHWOLD: And yet you give him car- 
 rot fritters. 
 
 BERTRAM (irritated) : He eats whatever he 
 pleases, turtle and turbot for aught I know. I 
 should never presume to impose on him either my 
 menu or my tenets, my beliefs or my principles. 
 LADY SOUTHWOLD: You do wisely to keep 
 him. I hope you zvill keep him. He is your 
 only link to civilized life. 
 
 BERTRAM (smiles') : My dear aunt, when I was 
 in the South Pacific, I landed at a small island 
 where civilization was considered to consist in 
 a pierced nose and a swollen belly. I do not 
 want to be offensive, but the estimate which my 
 age takes of its own civilization is not very much 
 more sensible. 
 
 LADY SOUTHWOLD: I think it would have been 
 better, Wilfred, to study psychology under these 
 savages than to publish the Age to Come! You 
 
 could not have injured them, but here 
 
 CICELY SEYMOUR : How illiberal you are, dear 
 Lady Southwold. You want a course of Mon- 
 taigne. 
 
 LORD MARLOW: What is that, Miss Seymour? 
 A rival to Mariani wine? 
 
 CICELY SEYMOUR: Yes, a French wine; very 
 old and quite unequalled. 
 
 (Even BERTRAM laughs. MARLOW is irritated. 
 
 He does not see zvhat he has said which is 
 
 so absurd, or why his friends are laughing.') 
 
 LORD MARLOW (muttering aside to CICELY 
 
 SEYMOUR) : Why do you always take that prig's 
 
 part? 
 
 36
 
 A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 CICELY SEYMOUR : I do not take any one's 
 part, but I detest injustice and iliiberality. 
 (At this moment the old DUKE rises with BER- 
 TRAM'S help, is assisted by him to find his 
 Jiat and takes his departure, assuring his 
 godson that he has been much entertained. 
 Others do the same. CICELY SEYMOUR says 
 simply and very gently to BERTRAM that she 
 is his debtor for many noble thoughts. 
 When all are gone BERTRAM ivalks up and 
 down the room dissatisfied with himself. 
 Presently he stops midway and bursts out 
 impatiently :) 
 
 BERTRAM : What a coward I am ! What a mis- 
 erable, beastly poltroon ! Why could I not say to 
 a few people drinking tea in my rooms "my good 
 folks, I am going to marry Annie Brown" in- 
 stead of referring to her as. "a perfectly respect- 
 able young woman"? . . . What would my 
 aunt have done ? What would that grinning Mar- 
 low have said? What would Cicely Seymour 
 have thought? . . . There you have it in plain 
 English ! I was the slave of opinion like everybody 
 else. I was afraid of a set of fools who are caper- 
 ing on their primrose path seeing nothing' of the 
 abyss to which it leads. . . . Ah, yes, true it is 
 the times are out of joint but evidently / was not 
 born to set them right. Heaven makes but small 
 use of cowards! 
 
 (Shrugging his shoulders and sighing deeply, 
 BERTRAM throws himself into a deep chair 
 and lights a cigarette.)
 
 A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 SCENE II. BERTRAM is seated at his desk 
 in his library, preparing an article for 
 his paper "Age to Come." The editor of 
 the "Torch" MR. FANSHAWE, a gentleman 
 of no definite age, with a shreivd counte- 
 nance and a significant smile, crosses the 
 room with outstretched hand. 
 FANSHAWE: My dear Wilfred, they tell me 
 you are in a wax about the exceptions I took to 
 your article. I am extremely sorry to touch a 
 single line of yours, but the public must be con- 
 sidered, you know. You are miles too advanced 
 
 for 
 
 BERTRAM (stiffly) : Do not trouble yourself; 
 I shall publish it in the Age to Come. 
 
 FANSHAWE: Oh, that is a pity; that will be 
 practically putting it in the waste-paper basket. 
 Excuse my saying so, but you know the circula- 
 tion of the Age to Come is at present is well 
 limited. 
 
 BERTRAM (sarcastically) : We certainly do not 
 chronicle the scandals of the hunting-field, and 
 devote columns to prophesying the shape of next 
 year's bonnets, as the Torch does ! 
 
 FANSHAWE: That shows you don't under- 
 stand your public or don't want to secure one. 
 Extreme opinions, my dear boy, can only be got 
 down the throats of the world in a weekly jour- 
 nal by being adroitly sandwiched between the 
 caviare of calumny and the butter of fashion. 
 People hate to be made to think, my dear boy. 
 The Age to Come gives 'em nothing but think- 
 ing; and damned tough thinking too. You write 
 38
 
 'A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 with uncommon power, but you are too whole- 
 sale, too subversive ; you scare people so awfully 
 that they stop their ears to your truths. That 
 is not the way to secure a hearing. (FANSHAWE 
 seats himself in the easiest chair in the room not 
 far from where BERTRAM is seated.) 
 
 BERTRAM (doggedly) : I am consistent. 
 
 FANSHAWE: Oh, Lord! Never be consistent. 
 There's nothing so unpopular in life. 
 
 BERTRAM : I despise popularity. 
 
 FANSHAWE: You despise bread and butter. I 
 believe you lose twenty pounds a month by your 
 Age to Come. 
 
 BERTRAM (bitterly) : To speak correctly, it 
 gets me into debt to that amount. 
 
 FANSHAWE: Heaven and earth! Why don't 
 you drp it? 
 
 BERTRAM : It is a matter of principle. 
 
 FANSHAWE : Principle which will land you in 
 Queer Street. Now, my dear Wilfred, no man 
 thinks more things bosh than I do, or takes more 
 pleasure in saying so, but I combine pleasure with 
 business; I say my say in such a way that it 
 brings me in eighty per cent. 
 
 BERTRAM (looking at him derisively) : I have 
 always known that your intellect was only 
 equalled by your venality. 
 
 FANSHAWE (laughs good-hwnoredly) : That 
 is neat. That is soothing. It is not difficult to 
 understand that you are not considered a club- 
 able man ! However, as you credit me with in- 
 tellect, I don't mind your denying me morality. 
 But seriously, my dear friend, you are much too 
 
 39
 
 'A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 violent, too uncompromising for success in jour- 
 nalism. Who tries to prove too much fails to 
 prove anything, and when you bend you bow too 
 violently it snaps and speeds no arrow. I confess 
 that I (who am as revolutionary as most people 
 and always disposed to agree with you), do fre- 
 quently get up from the perusal of one of your 
 articles with the unwilling conviction that it is 
 best to let the old order of things alone. Now, 
 that is certainly not the condition of mind which 
 you wish to produce in your readers. 
 
 BERTRAM (after a pause} : What do you advo- 
 cate then? A cautious trimming? 
 
 FANSHAWE: Trimming was the name which 
 the eighteenth century politician gave to what 
 we now call opportunism. All sagacious men are 
 not opportunists, but all sagacious men endeavor 
 to create supporters, not antagonists. Now, all 
 violent assertions raise opposition, for human na- 
 ture is cantankerous and contradictory. 
 (CRITCHETT enters and hands a card on a 
 salver.} 
 
 CRITCHETT : If you please, sir, the gentleman's 
 waiting below ; says he sent you a letter two 
 days ago; gentleman's head of the firm of Fol- 
 liott & Hake, sir. 
 
 BERTRAM (looking vaguely about the room) : 
 There are a good many letters unopened. I won- 
 der which it is. 
 
 FANSHAWE (catches up a pile of letters from 
 a table and sorts them} : Here's one with "Fol- 
 liott & Hake" on the seal; how unpractical you 
 are, my dear boy ! 
 
 40
 
 'A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 BERTRAM (taking the letter and looking at it 
 without curiosity) : It is sure to be something un- 
 pleasant. I never heard of Folliott & Hake. 
 
 FANSHAWE (laughs): I have; many a time. 
 They have been solicitors in more than one libel 
 case, of which the Torch was defendant. Come, 
 open the letter. See what it says. 
 
 BERTRAM (opens and reads it) : Only that they 
 have a matter of great importance to communi- 
 cate to me. I really have no idea what it can be. 
 People think so many things are important which 
 are of infinitesimal insignificance. 
 
 FANSHAWE: You will correct your ignorance 
 by allowing Mr. Folliott to enter and explain 
 himself. 
 
 BERTRAM : I am so opposed to all lawyers on 
 principle. 
 
 FANSHAWE: So am I, as I am opposed to 
 smallpox, or bicycle riders, or yellow fogs ; but 
 they are not to be avoided in this life, and it is 
 neither polite or politic to keep these highly re- 
 spectable solicitors waiting like sweeps. Crit- 
 chett, beg Mr. Folliott to enter. I will leave you, 
 Bertram. 
 
 BERTRAM : No, no ; for goodness' sake stay. 
 I may want some advice. 
 
 FANSHAWE: You not unfrequently do. But 
 
 you never follow it when given. Pray, be civil. 
 
 (A few moments later, MR. FOLLIOTT enters; a 
 
 bland, white-haired, portly old gentleman, a 
 
 little ruffled at having been left so long at 
 
 the foot of the stairs.) 
 
 BERTRAM : I beg your pardon Mr. Mr. 
 
 41
 
 A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 Folliott (glancing at the letter) ; I had, in fact, 
 not opened this note of yours. It is a bad habit 
 I have of leaving letters unread. 
 
 FOLLIOTT: It was Sheridan's, sir. It did not 
 bring him good fortune. 
 
 (As CRITCHETT seats the lawyer he catches sight 
 of FANSHAWE, and his amiable countenance 
 assumes the startled and displeased expres- 
 sion of a cat's face when the cat suddenly 
 perceives a bull terrier.) 
 
 FOLLIOTT (in an affronted manner) : I natu- 
 rally awaited you all day, Mr. Bertram, or a com- 
 munication from you. Hearing nothing, I 
 thought best to come myself. You are perhaps 
 unaware the Prince of Viana is dead. 
 
 BERTRAM : I never heard of the individual. 
 Who was he? 
 
 FOLLIOTT : He was your first cousin. You may 
 know him better as the son of Mr. Horace Er- 
 rington. 
 
 BERTRAM : Oh ! The son of my mother's 
 brother? We never knew him. There was a 
 family feud. 
 
 FOLLIOTT: But you will remember to have 
 heard that his father made great wealth in the 
 Abruzzi through copper mines, was nationalized 
 and was ennobled by Victor Emmanuel. The 
 family feud was chiefly on account of his con- 
 nection with commerce and his change of coun- 
 try. 
 
 BERTRAM : Precisely. 
 
 FOLLIOTT: I regret to inform you that your 
 cousin is dead, at thirty-three years of age, killed 
 42
 
 A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 by a wild boar when hunting in the Pontine 
 marshes; he has left you, Mr. Bertram, his sole 
 and exclusive heir. 
 
 BERTRAM (highly astonished): What! you 
 must be joking, Mr. Folliott! 
 (The old gentleman takes off his gold spectacles 
 and puts them on again in extreme irrita- 
 tion. ) 
 
 FOLLIOTT: I am not in the habit of joking, sir, 
 either in business or out of it. We were so- 
 licitors to his father and to himself. We drew 
 up this will five years ago. You are inheritor 
 to an immense fortune, Mr. Bertram. 
 
 BERTRAM (staring at him then turns to FAN- 
 SHAWE) : Do you hear? Is it true? Surely, no 
 one could insult me so greatly, even in jest? 
 
 FOLLIOTT: I really do not understand what in- 
 sult there can be? I am speaking in sober earn- 
 est. 
 
 FANSHAWE (derisively) : Shall I fan you, 
 Wilfred? or send for some sal volatile? (In a 
 whisper) Don't be an ass. This sensible old fel- 
 low will think it his duty to shut you up in a 
 private madhouse, if you talk like that. Pull 
 yourself together, and answer him sensibly. 
 
 FOLLIOTT (surveying the speaker as a timid 
 person may look at a lion riding on a velocipede 
 in a circus-ring) : If Mr. Bertram would place 
 me in communication with his solicitor matters 
 would be facilitated. 
 
 BERTRAM : I have no solicitors. If you will 
 pardon what may seem an offensive opinion, I 
 regard all men of law as poisonous parasites 
 43
 
 'A PREM'ATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 growing on the rotten trunk of society, which has 
 the axe of retribution laid at its roots. 
 
 FOLLIOTT (too astonished to be offended} : I 
 fail to follow you, sir, but I -have no doubt you 
 mean something very profound. Your cousin 
 did not, I imagine, read your articles in the re- 
 views, but I have read one or two of them. How- 
 ever, notwithstanding your extraordinary opin- 
 ions, you are a man of birth and breeding, and 
 must, in a measure, be a man of the world, sir; 
 you must know that you must allow me to ful- 
 fill my office. This will has to be proved and 
 probate taken out. 
 
 BERTRAM: Where is the necessity? 
 
 FOLLIOTT: Be so good as not to play with me. 
 You must accept the inheritance or decline it. In 
 the event of your refusal, of your formal and final 
 refusal, the whole of this property is to go to the 
 testator's old college at Oxford Magdalen Col- 
 lege. 
 
 BERTRAM : Ah ! that is a consolation. 
 
 FOLLIOTT: Why so, sir? 
 
 BERTRAM : Because, although I have no sym- 
 pathy with the modern movements at Oxford, 
 and consider that she has fallen away from her 
 original high mission, yet she is and always will 
 be a seat of learning; and the Humanities will 
 never wholly be banished from her halls. 
 
 FOLLIOTT : Again I fail to follow you, sir. 
 
 BERTRAM : I mean that such an alternative 
 destination for the property will enable me to 
 decline it with a clear conscience. 
 
 44
 
 A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 FOLLIOTT (looking very puzzled) : Really, sir, 
 your replies are wholly unintelligible. 
 
 BERTRAM (turning helplessly to FANSHAWE) : 
 Explain to this gentleman my views regarding 
 property. 
 
 FOLLIOTT (sententiously) : I am aware of some 
 of them, sir. 
 
 FANSHAWE: You read the Torch, Mr. Fol- 
 liott, don't you? 
 
 FOLLIOTT: When my professional duties com- 
 pel me, sir. 
 
 FANSHAWE: But the Torch is milk for lambs, 
 Mr. Folliott, beside the Age to Come. 
 (The solicitor bows with an expression which in- 
 dicates that he -would prefer to remain unac- 
 quainted with the "Age to Come.") 
 
 FANSHAWE : But pardon me, is my friend here 
 really so immensely in luck's way? 
 
 FOLLIOTT : He inherits under the Prince of Vi- 
 ana's will all the properties, both English and 
 Italian. 
 
 FANSHAWE: And they are very large? 
 
 FOLLIOTT: Very large. My late client was an 
 only son, and, though generous, never spend- 
 thrift. 
 
 ^ANSHAWE (touching BERTRAM'S arm) : 
 Wake up, Wilfred. Do you hear? Can't you 
 speak ? 
 
 BERTRAM (wearily) : What am I to say? It is 
 an unspeakably awful thing. I really cannot 
 bring myself to believe in it. 
 
 FOLLIOTT: If you will allow me to make you 
 
 45
 
 A PREMATURE S C I'ALI ST 
 
 acquainted with some of the details of the 
 
 BERTRAM : To what end ? Do the items of the 
 pack interest the packhorse to whose aching back 
 the burden is offered? 
 
 FOLLIOTT: Again I fail to follow you. 
 
 FANSHAWE : To follow him requires a long 
 course of patient perusal of the Age to Come. 
 
 FOLLIOTT (in a tone which intimates that he 
 will not have that patience} : Quite so, quite so. 
 I have never seen the announcement of an in- 
 heritance received in such a manner. 
 
 BERTRAM : But why did this relative, whom I 
 never knew, leave his property to me? 
 
 FOLLIOTT: I cannot tell, sir. It was certainly 
 not by the advice of our firm. 
 
 BERTRAM : Are there any conditions attached 
 to this extraordinary bequest? 
 
 FOLLIOTT: None, sir. You can realize at once 
 and invest everything in dynamite and pyretic 
 acid. ( The lazvyer's glance was full of dynamite 
 as he finished speaking.} 
 
 BERTRAM : Oh, my dear sir ! Can you fall 
 into the vulgar error of confounding socialism 
 with anarchy? They are as far apart as the 
 poles. One is love : the other hatred. 
 
 FOLLIOTT: I confess, sir, that such love nau- 
 seates me. I prefer of the two hatred. But I 
 am an old-fashioned person, and I know little of 
 literature later than the 'Sixties. 
 
 BERTRAM (with disgust} : A most debased 
 period in every form of production. 
 
 FOLLIOTT: ft may be so. Macaulay was alive 
 
 46
 
 'A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 in it and Tennyson. But I am not here to dis- 
 cuss the characteristics of generations. I came 
 to inform you of an event which I immaturely 
 concluded would appear to you both important 
 and agreeable. 
 
 BERTRAM : You did not know me, my dear 
 sir. 
 
 FOLLIOTT : I did not, sir. 
 
 (With a little cough and a little stately bow the 
 old gentleman prepares to leave, with the 
 cat's glance at the bull terrier still more 
 hostile and more scared.) 
 
 FOLLIOTT : You will be so good as to call on us 
 to-morrow morning, sir, or to send a representa- 
 tive authorized by you. You must be aware 
 that the law requires you either to accept the be- 
 quest or decline it. 
 
 BERTRAM : I am criminal if I accept : I may be 
 equally criminal if I reject it. 
 
 FOLLIOTT: Again I fail to follow you, sir. 
 But of course you are your own master; and in 
 the event of your failure to call on us to-mor- 
 row morning you will be so g"ood as to make us 
 acquainted with your decisions and intentions. 
 
 BERTRAM : I will send Fanshawe. 
 (The solicitor does not look overjoyed at the 
 promise, but bows in silence, a very stiff and 
 formal bow, and leaves the room without 
 more words.) 
 
 BERTRAM (doubtfully) : I am afraid I was 
 not very polite to him. 
 
 FANSHAWE: You certainly were not. I think
 
 'A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 you could give hints to Whistler on the Gentle 
 Art of Making Enemies. But why did you talk 
 all that rot? He only ridiculed you for it. 
 
 BERTRAM (earnestly} : I only said what I 
 meant. 
 
 FANSHAWE: You mean to let this fortune go 
 to Magdalen College? 
 
 BERTRAM : Unless I change my present inten- 
 tions very completely. 
 
 FANSHAWE (bursts out indignantly} : Oh 
 Lord ! This is green sickness, moonstruck mad- 
 ness ; Hamlet's monomania was nothing to it. 
 Are you absolutely insensible to the fact that you 
 would be able to print ten million of copies of 
 the Age to Come every week and distribute them 
 gratis all over the country every week? 
 
 BERTRAM (stanchly) : Even that alluring pros- 
 pect cannot tempt me. My acceptance of a for- 
 tune would be as anomalous as Lord Rosebery's 
 creation of Peers. Miserable creatures that we 
 are, we are only tolerably respectable so long as 
 we are at least fairly consistent. 
 
 FANSHAWE (in disgust): Oh Lord save us! 
 You can't possibly be serious. 
 
 BERTRAM : I speak in entire sincerity. 
 
 FANSHAWE: A very dangerous thing to do 
 at any time. People have such a shocking habit 
 of taking one at one's word! Old Folliott is 
 very shrewd, too, though he's Tory. 
 
 BERTRAM (petulantly) : What is his shrewd- 
 ness to me? 
 
 FANSHAWE: Well, if you retain him as your 
 
 48
 
 A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 business man, it may be a great deal. It is usual 
 to retain the testator's solicitor, when they are 
 as eminent and irreproachable as Folliott & 
 Hake. 
 
 BERTRAM (growing impatient) : Cannot you 
 understand? I do not take this property. I do 
 not dream of taking it for a single instant ! 
 
 FANSHAWE (angry and astonished beyond 
 bound) : You can't be such a transcendent ass! 
 Excuse me, but 
 
 BERTRAM (crestfallen) : I should have 
 thought you would have looked at this matter as 
 I do. 
 
 FANSHAWE: Dear boy, all property ought to 
 be abolished, on that we are quite agreed, but 
 whilst it still exists in this piggish world we are 
 bound in duty to ourselves and our neighbors to 
 make the best of it, and get as much as we 
 can! 
 
 BERTRAM (with scorn) : Then you are a mere 
 sham ! A humbug ! A hypocrite ! 
 
 FANSHAWE: You mean to be rude, but I take 
 no offense. Everybody is insincere in civilized 
 countries. 
 
 BERTRAM (angrily} : What an infamous 
 theory ! I have always thought that your house 
 at Prince's Gate, your swell garden parties, your 
 blooded horses, and all the rest of it, were ludi- 
 crously out of keeping with your political and lit- 
 erary declarations of opinion. 
 
 FANSHAWE: Not more so than your silver tea- 
 set and your exemplary Critchett are with yours. 
 
 49
 
 T A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 Don't let us quarrel, at least not until to-morrow. 
 I want to see more of old Folliott. He is one 
 of the worst enemies I have, and I do so delight 
 in drawing the claws of an enemy with my 
 bland manners. Besides I owe him a good deal. 
 The Torch was in its infancy when he made its 
 fortune and set it on its legs by his libel suits. 
 Meet me in Hyde Park at eleven to-morrow. 
 I'll come out of my house through Albert Gate, 
 and we'll go down to his office together. 
 
 BERTRAM : You can go and take my written re- 
 fusal with you. 
 
 (FANSHAWE gives a gesture of irritated impa- 
 tience, and looks at his watch.) 
 
 FANSHAWE: La nuit porte conseil. You will 
 think differently in the morning. I am dining 
 at Richmond. I can't stay another moment, but 
 for heaven's sake, take till to-morrow to think 
 it over. Ta-ta! 
 
 BERTRAM : Good-day. 
 
 (FANSHAWE passes quickly out of the room.) 
 
 BERTRAM : Critchett ! ( The valet approaches 
 his master, feeling that some trouble is impend- 
 ing.) I wish you to sell my silver tea-set and 
 pocket the proceeds. It will be necessary for you 
 to seek a new place. I need not say that it will 
 be painful for me to part with you, but a man 
 should be true to his principles, cost what it may. 
 
 CRITCHETT : But, sir, I shall have to be a serv- 
 ant to somebody. I like you best. I cannot 
 bear to leave you ! 
 
 BERTRAM : Ah, but you must. It will be easy
 
 A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 for a person who knows his business as well as 
 yon do yours to obtain a new situation ; and there 
 are plenty of people eager to make servants of 
 their fellow-creatures. 
 
 (CRITCHETT departs, effusively wiping his eyes 
 with his handkerchief. BERTRAM, as is his 
 custom zvhen agitated, paces his room with 
 gloomy looks and folded arms.)
 
 at o 
 
 Art
 
 A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 ACT II. 
 
 SCENE I. BERTRAM, unable to sleep all night, is 
 walking along Rotten Row under the trees 
 with a mind so preoccupied that he narrowly 
 escapes being knocked down by an ambas- 
 sadress on a bicycle. When he has arrived 
 opposite the Residential Hotel a building 
 eleven stories high he sits dozvn, feeling 
 rather limp and aimless; and lighting a cigar- 
 ette, he awaits the coming of FANSHAWE. 
 There is a policeman close at hand; some 
 children are near, with their nurses; and a 
 respectable, middle-aged, brisk-looking wo- 
 man, with some fine linen in a basket, is ap- 
 proaching. He raises his hat to her. 
 BERTRAM: Is that you, Mrs. Brown? I never 
 saw you in the park before. 
 
 MRS. BROWN : No, sir, I don't often come nigh 
 fine folks, but I've got to go to Prince's Gate, 
 number fifteen, and I turned in 'ere, 'cos the 
 traffic's that crowded on 'igh road ; 'is 'ighness is 
 agoin' down to 'Ounslow. 
 
 BERTRAM : Oh, to be sure. How are your peo- 
 ple this morning? 
 
 MRS. BROWN : My pore legs, sir, be as bad as 
 ever out there, we pore folks can't stop for 
 55
 
 A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 aches and pains, or we'd never do naught for this 
 'ere world; 'twasn't made for the likes of us. 
 
 BERTRAM : That is a sad reflection ; but, pray 
 don't say "sir" to me. 
 
 MRS. BROWN : It comes natural, sir. I hev 
 allus been one as did my humble duty to the 
 quality. 
 
 BERTRAM : Oh, I know ! It is this terrible ser- 
 vility which has entered like blood-poisoning into 
 the very marrow of the people. 
 (The policeman standing near listening grins 
 behind his white-gloved hand.} 
 
 BERTRAM (impatiently} : You are so used to 
 stoop and cringe that you have lost the power 
 to stand upright when you are invited to do 
 so. Where is your daughter? 
 
 MRS. BROWN : Annie's at 'Ealing, sir. It's 
 Primrose Day to-morrow. 
 
 BERTRAM : And what is your opinion of Prim- 
 rose Day, Mrs. Brown? 
 
 MRS. BROWN : Well, sir, it's got 'em lots o' 
 votes, but it do seem to me a pack o' folly. No 
 offense. 
 
 BERTRAM : And the Primrose Dames, Mrs. 
 Brown ? 
 
 MRS. BROWN : Well, sir, they're a pretty spry 
 lot o' ladies, and they come and talk, talk, talk, 
 and me at the mangle, and I wish 'em anywheres ; 
 and one o' 'em promised to have my kitchen 
 boiler looked to, but, Lord! that's three months 
 ago come Monday was a week, and nobody's 
 come to the boiler. 
 
 BERTRAM : Both the Tories and the Whigs, 
 56
 
 A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 Prigs and Pigs, always forget the boilers: and 
 are extremely astonished when the neglected 
 boilers blow up. 
 
 MRS. BROWN (hotly) : My boiler was no busi- 
 ness o' theirs, but if they said they'd send, they 
 hought to hev sent. But, there! that's them 
 ladies all over, in and out, and to and fro, and it's 
 how's my soul? and how's my dust bin? and hev 
 I faith? and do 1 read my Bible? and am I an 
 abstainer? and do I see the blessings of eddica- 
 tion? and do I keep my sink flushed? and do I 
 use carbolic acid? Such a pack o' nonsense, and 
 in they comes without rappin', and if they see 
 a bit of dust in a corner 'tis, "Lord, Mrs. 
 Brown, don't ye know as dust is microbes, and 
 microbes is sartain death?" And I says, says 
 I : "No, marm, my leddy, my granny lived to 
 ninety-six, and on her ninetieth birthday she 
 walked four miles to market and back, and she 
 allus said to all o' us as dust was wholesome, 
 and cobwebs too, and shouldn't be interfered 
 
 with 
 
 (She stops out of breath, and the listening police- 
 man smiles again.) 
 
 BERTRAM : People were more robust in those 
 days, Mrs. Brown. 
 
 MRS. BROWN : Yes, sir ; there weren't so many 
 doctors all over the place. When I was a gal, 
 in our village there weren't a doctor within 
 twenty mile; and nobody was ever ill. Now- 
 adays young and old is allus talking about their 
 livers and lights till they fret themselves into 
 sickness. 
 
 57
 
 'A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 BERTRAM : That is very possible. Science is 
 much to blame for teaching humanity to con- 
 centrate the mind on the body. There I wholly 
 agree with you. 
 
 (MRS. BROWN picks up her load of linen, which 
 she has momentarily rested on the back of 
 a bench.} 
 
 MRS. BROWN: Well, sir, you'll please excuse 
 me, but I can't stand chattering here. We 
 pore has got our work to do. That's what I 
 says to them ladies when they come botherin'. 
 I say, says I : "We pore has our work to do, 
 and when 'tis done we want to sit still, and 
 put our feet up, and take a cup o' tea, and doze 
 like; we don't want to go strammarkin' about 
 to your concerts, and your readin's and your 
 mother's meetin's and all them rubbishes, and 
 see a duchess playin' a banjo, or hear a duke 
 sing 'Hot Codlins.' " Let 'em keep in their place 
 and we'll keep in ours. That's what I says, sir, 
 and I bring up my children to say it arter me. 
 
 BERTRAM (sadly} : Oh, I am aware, Mrs. 
 Brown, that you and those who resemble you, are 
 a terrible stumbling-block to progress. 
 
 MRS. BROWN (pitifully) : Please don't call me 
 names, sir. I'm a pore workin' woman, but 
 I'm one as hev allus kep' my head above water. 
 You're in one speer and I in another, as I hev 
 allus told ye, but all the same I choose to be re- 
 specket. 
 
 BERTRAM (very earnestly) : My dear crea- 
 ture, no one can respect you more profoundly 
 than I do. 
 
 58
 
 A PREMATURE SOCIALIST. 
 
 (But MRS. BROWN is not appeased by this as- 
 sertion and walks aivay in high dudgeon, 
 There is meanwhile a great noise of yell- 
 ing and shouting in the distance near the 
 statue of Achilles.} 
 
 BERTRAM (appealing to a constable} : What 
 are they doing? 
 
 CONSTABLE (touching his helmet) : Well, sir, 
 the Salvationists have got new banners, "Glory" 
 on one side, and "Eternal Fire" on the other; 
 and the pop'lace don't like 'em. Pop'lace very 
 queer and touchy, sir. Never knows what it 
 wants. 
 
 BERTRAM : That is a hasty condemnation to 
 pass on those who form the bulwarks of a na- 
 tion. 
 
 CONSTABLE (astonished) : Bulwarks is it, sir? 
 Not when they've got any beer in 'em. 
 (The uproar in the distance grows loud indeed; 
 some children are alarmed; the nurse who 
 is with them asks the policeman if there is 
 any danger of a riot.) 
 
 POLICEMAN (cheerfully) : No fear, mum. 
 They're round Hachilles ; the Salvationists are on 
 one side, a rum chap hollering against property 
 on the other. He's one o' them Socialists and 
 the pop'lace don't cotton to the ideas; pop'lace 
 likes gentlefolks. Lord! see 'em run to stare 
 at the carriages o' Drawing-room days ! 
 
 BERTRAM (dismally) : XVhat's the use trying 
 to save those who carry their own fleeces to the 
 shearers ? 
 
 POLICEMAN (drily) : Some on 'em yell a lot 
 59
 
 A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 of revolutionary nonsense when they gets in 
 Trafalgar Square, but, Lord bless ye, they don't 
 mean it. 
 
 BERTRAM (stoutly} : They will mean it one 
 day. 
 
 Policeman : Well, sir, if they ever run short 
 o' liquor on account of them total habstainers, 
 they will. 
 
 BERTRAM (who, in the "Age to Come" advo- 
 cates voluntary total abstinence, sighs) : What 
 a view of the sovereign people! 
 
 POLICEMAN: Sovereign is it, sir? Ever seen 
 'em o' Derby Day, sir? 
 
 BERTRAM (curtly since he believes the po- 
 liceman to be a satirist) : Yes. 
 (In sight at that moment appears a struggling 
 form being violently propelled by two of- 
 ficers of the law, and followed by some yell- 
 ing roughs and capering boys. BERTRAM can- 
 not believe his senses.) 
 
 BERTRAM (to the satirical policeman) : Good 
 gracious! That is Hopper! What are they do- 
 Ing to him? Why is he arrested? 
 
 POLICEMAN (politely but with scarcely veiled 
 contempt) : Seem to be running him in, sir. Is 
 a protegy of yours? 
 
 BERTRAM (going up to the prisoner) : Why, 
 Hopper, is that you? (Turning to the officers of 
 law) What has he done? Why do you collar 
 him like that? 
 
 CONSTABLE (one of the tivo who is dragging 
 HOPPER along replies with curt contempt) : 
 
 60
 
 'A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 Disorderly ; drunk and disorderly ; that's what he 
 is, sir, and incitin' to crime. 
 
 BERTRAM: Drunk? Hopper? Impossible! 
 He has touched nothing but lemonade and min- 
 eral water for three years ! 
 
 CONSTABLE: Is that so, sir? Well, there's an 
 excuse for him, then, poor devil! 
 
 (The prisoner whines and weeps.) 
 
 HOPPER: Is that you, Mr. Bertram? You'll 
 speak for a pore honest man (hie) for a pore 
 honest man (hie). Not a drop hev Hopper took 
 (hie) not a drop (hie) not a drop (hie). Hark 
 'ee, Mister (hie) Hopper was a-tellin' folks 
 (hie) good-tidings (hie) proputty's pison (hie) 
 proputty's thievin' (hie) proputty's root of all 
 evil (hie) said so yourself (hie). Hopper use 
 your werry words (hie). And Hopper's run in 
 (hie) and ye stand there, yah! (hie). Black- 
 gud! 
 
 BERTRAM (sternly) : I am ashamed of you, 
 Hopper! But (turning to the constables') if you 
 arrest this man for having taken stimulants, I 
 cannot oppose the measure; he may deserve ar- 
 rest; but if you consider him guilty because he 
 has merely striven to disseminate the doctrines 
 which I myself hold, I ought in common justice 
 to accompany him and be locked up as well. 
 
 POLICEMAN (with the satirical vein smiles 
 rather cynically') : Wall, sir, I don't say as you 
 shouldn't, but we can't run you in, sir ; you aren't 
 disorderly. 
 
 MARLOW (who is sauntering past, stops and 
 laughs) : His opinions are very disorderly. Half 
 61
 
 'A PREMATURE S C I'A L I S T 
 
 an hour in Bow Street might be a seasonable 
 douche. 
 
 HOPPER (struggling betiveen the two con- 
 stables who have him by the collar, calls out to 
 BERTRAM) : Hi there (hie). Won't you speak 
 hup for an 'onest man (hie). Kep' me on 
 beastly swills (hie). You hev kep' promisin' on 
 me as 'ow I'd live in Windsor Castle (hie) and 
 hev ale an' gin on tap all day (hie), all night 
 (hie). Promised as 'ow (hie), promised as 'ow 
 (hie), as 'ow (hie). 
 
 CONSTABLE (to other constable) : Shut up his 
 jaw ! Get him along somehow. We can't 
 waste no more time. 
 
 (They go doztm the road, dragging and pushing 
 HOPPER ; a group^ of small boys dancing hi- 
 lariously in their rear. BERTRAM, LORD 
 MARLOW and the satirical policeman follow 
 slowly. ) 
 
 BERTRAM (to policeman) : I assure you he 
 was an entirely reformed character up to this 
 moment. 
 
 POLICEMAN (with conviction} : Aye, they're 
 allus the worst. 
 
 MARLOW (who has lingered to look on with 
 great enjoyment of the scene) : Reformed char- 
 acters have a knack of backsliding. Vice is mag- 
 netic. Virtue isn't somehow. 
 
 BERTRAM (ignoring him and continuing to ad- 
 dress the policeman) : I suppose I can witness 
 on his behalf in the police court? Get him out 
 on bail ? My testimony surely 
 
 POLICEMAN : Well, sir, I'd let him bide if I was 
 62
 
 'A PREMATURE SOCIALIST, 
 
 you. Seven days'll do him a world o' good. 
 Wonderful how it sobers 'em. 
 
 (All pass out of sight.) 
 
 SCENE II. BERTRAM has resumed his seat in the 
 park, and is still waiting for FANSHAWE. 
 In another part of the park are CICELY SEY- 
 MOUR and LADY RIVAUX, also seated, with 
 LORD MARLOW standing in front of them. 
 
 LORD MARLOW : Oh, Miss Seymour, such a 
 lark down there. A friend of Bertram's -run in 
 dead drunk by the police, and Bertram preach- 
 ing red ruin on his behalf. On my word, it's 
 the drollest sight I've seen for many a day. 
 
 CICELY (annoyed) : It must be. We have all 
 of us a number of friends who take more stimu- 
 lants than are good for them, but they are care- 
 ful to be in the sanctuary of their own houses 
 or in their clubs. 
 
 MARLOW (hurt) : How you do pull a fellow 
 up! Of course, when I say friend, I mean a 
 a well, one of his monstrous queer acquaint- 
 ances. He lives amongst that class. 
 
 CICELY: What class? 
 
 LORD MARLOW: Well, the mob class you 
 know. Folks that come out when there's riot 
 and smash lamps and windows; never see them 
 any other time; burrow, I suppose, like rab- 
 bits. 
 
 CICELY: Darkest London! I fear the lamps 
 when they are not smashed do not throw much 
 light on their darkness. 
 
 LADY JANE RIVAUX: How sententious you 
 63
 
 A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 are, Cicely! You ought to marry a rising poli- 
 tician. 
 
 LORD MARLOW: Bertram's views aren't poli- 
 tics, they're red ruin. Red ruin to himself, too; 
 he's dropped such a pot o' money over that revo- 
 lutionary journal of his that he'll be in the bank- 
 ruptcy court before the season's over. 
 
 CICELY : Has he borrowed any money of you ? 
 
 LORD MARLOW: Oh, dear, no; I didn't mean 
 to imply 
 
 CICELY: Then what are his affairs to you? 
 
 LORD MARLOW (confused} : Well, I I don't 
 know. Mustn't one talk of one's neighbors ? 
 
 CICELY : It shows great poverty of mind to 
 speak merely of people. There are so many 
 other subjects. 
 
 (LORD MARLOW is abashed. He knows his mind 
 is not rich according to her ideas of intel- 
 lectual wealth.) 
 
 LORD MARLOW (hotly and crossly) : At all 
 events, one may be allowed to envy such a prig 
 the good luck to have Miss Seymour for a 
 champion. 
 
 LADY JANE RIVAUX: He is a prig, you 
 know, and I am sorry it makes you angry when 
 we say so. 
 
 CICELY (coldly) : I dislike all injustice, and I 
 do not consider that Mr. Bertram is in the least 
 done justice to by his friends and relations. How 
 badly every one treated him yesterday in re- 
 turn for a most learned and interesting lecture. 
 (While CICELY is thus defending BERTRAM, a 
 young woman passes by, stopping when she 
 64
 
 A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 reaches the seat on zt'hich he is seated. She 
 wears a black straw hat, a black jacket, and 
 a grey stuff skirt. SJie has two baskets filled 
 with primroses and covered by red cotton 
 handkerchiefs. She carries one on each 
 arm. She has a round, fair, freckled face, 
 a sweet and cheerful expression, and a 
 fringe of naturally curling hair. She ap- 
 proaches BERTRAM smiling.) 
 ANNIE BROWN: Oh, gracious, sir! Don't get 
 up for the likes of me. Mother told me as how 
 you were here under this tree. I just met her 
 by the Gate, so I thought I'd come and have a 
 peep at you. 
 
 BERTRAM (distantly) : Thanks. Don't say "as 
 how," Annie. You are heavily laden this morn- 
 ing. 
 
 ANNIE BROWN: Oh, no, sir. Primroses are 
 not heavy. They have no roots, but they make a 
 fine show. 
 
 BERTRAM : Like the party of which they are an 
 emblem. 
 
 (ANNIE smiles, in entire ignorance of his mean- 
 ing, and sits doivn by him, planting her bas- 
 kets on the ground.) 
 
 ANNIE BROWN : These aren't good flowers, the 
 rain's spiled 'em. They're to put at the horses' 
 ears. Why do they put 'em at the horses' ears, 
 sir? I asked a groom onst, and he says, says 
 he, it means that when our party come back to 
 office we'll take the tax off the horses. Is that so, 
 sir? 
 
 BERTRAM: They are not only at the horses' 
 
 65
 
 'A PREM'ATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 ears but at the asses' buttonholes ! As for taxa- 
 tion, it is the ark of Toryism. 
 (BERTRAM is irritated that ANNIE has seated 
 herself beside him evidently to remain in- 
 definitely. She begins to arrange her prim- 
 roses in bunches.) 
 
 ANNIE BROWN : What had you said to 
 mother? Her back was quite set up like. 
 
 BERTRAM : Your mother is the most estimable 
 and indefatigable of persons, but she has the 
 taint of painfully narrowed and archaic views; 
 she persists in considering herself of an inferior 
 class. She persists in speaking of "quality," by 
 which she means the patrician order, as some- 
 thing superhuman and alien to herself. It dis- 
 tresses me. 
 
 ANNIE BROWN : Oh, yes ! Mother's always go- 
 ing on about our engagement. She says as 
 how 
 
 BERTRAM : "As how," again, Annie ! 
 
 ANNIE BROWN: Well, sir, that's just what 
 my mother means. You speak in one way and I 
 in another. And your friends will laugh at my 
 way of speaking, sir; they certainly will. 
 
 BERTRAM : Let them laugh ! Besides we shall 
 not see them, Annie; we shall live wholly apart 
 from them, in some remote spot of our own. 
 
 ANNIE BROWN (astonished) : Out of Lon- 
 don, sir? 
 
 BERTRAM : Out of London beyond a doubt. Is 
 that any subject of regret? 
 
 ANNIE BROWN (sadly) : Well, I should miss 
 the streets, sir. 
 
 66
 
 T A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 BERTRAM (irritated}: Miss the streets! Mer- 
 ciful heavens ! To what a pass has the baneful 
 disease of town life brought a pure and unsophis- 
 ticated soul! But you have been in the country 
 this morning early the edge of the country, at 
 any rate. Did the freshness, the silence, the fra- 
 grance around you say nothing to your soul? 
 
 ANNIE BROWN: Well, no, sir. Where the 
 growers are you don't smell much else but ma- 
 nure ; and there's a steam pump always going fit 
 to deafen you. 
 
 BERTRAM : Well, well ! But you must have 
 seen the real country. I have myself taken you 
 to Bushey and Thames Ditton. Surely you must 
 see that the streets are the quintessence of vul- 
 garity, of artificiality, of hideousness, of ludi- 
 crous effort? 
 
 ANNIE BROWN: If they're as bad as that, sir, 
 why do all the great ladies stay all the summer 
 in 'em, when they might be in the country? Our 
 little street ain't much, to be sure, but there's a 
 deal of neighborliness in it; and I'm so used to 
 listening for Sam's growler rattlin' home I don't 
 think sleep 'ud come to me without it. 
 
 BERTRAM (greatly irritated) : We really can- 
 not take Sam and his cab into our wedded life, 
 and why will you say '"sir," and not Wilfred? 
 
 ANNIE BROWN (startled) : Your Christian 
 name would sound so cheeky, sir. I couldn't 
 bring myself to say it. You're so different to 
 me, sir. That's what my mother allus says: 
 "Mr. Bertram's got queer notions," says she; 
 "but he was born of the quality, and quality he'll
 
 'A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 be till he die, let him fuss and fad and fettle as 
 much as ever he likes." 
 
 BERTRAM (looking uneasily down the Mile} : 
 Won't your primroses wither in the sun? 
 
 ANNIE BROWN : No ; there's shade o' the tree. 
 
 BERTRAM (to himself) : How shall I get rid of 
 her (Aloud} : Dear Annie if you won't misun- 
 derstand me, I think we'd better not be seen to- 
 gether. Caesar's wife no, I don't mean that, 
 I mean an Englishman's betrothed in fact, you 
 know what I mean. It was very kind of you to 
 send those violets yesterday, but it was a mistake 
 my rooms were full people laughed. 
 
 ANNIE BROWN : Oh, Mr. Bertram, I am so 
 sorry. It was silly, of course, now I think of 
 it. (She rises and takes up the baskets.} Mr. 
 Bertram, if you don't like to be seen with me 
 settin' on this bench, however will you stand 
 being seen with me all your life? 
 
 BERTRAM (nervously} : You don't compre- 
 hend. That isn't the question at all. I don't 
 want people to say coarse and rude things to 
 you. Of my wife no one will ever dare to do 
 so. 
 (ANNIE hangs her head in silence for a minute.) 
 
 ANNIE BROWN: Do you really love me, sir? 
 Mother says as how it's all moonshine. 
 
 BERTRAM : I dislike the word love what I feel 
 for you is respect, esteem, the sweetness of ful- 
 filled duty, the means of proving to the world the 
 sincerity of my sociology. 
 
 ANNIE BROWN (sadly) : Yes, sir. You told 
 me that afore. 
 
 68
 
 'A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 BERTRAM : Well, what better sentiment can 
 you desire? Love fills lunatic asylums, divorce 
 courts, cemeteries, heats charcoal braziers, fires 
 revolvers, gives human life to fishes ; but such a 
 sentiment as I have for you purifies society, ad- 
 vances civilization, ensures mutual respect, and 
 eliminates passion, the tyrant of man. 
 
 ANNIE BROWN (with her head down and in a 
 disappointed voice) : Yes, sir. 
 
 BERTRAM : I fear you are a sad Philistine, An- 
 nie. 
 
 ANNIE BROWN : I don't know what that is, sir. 
 I daresay it's only that your beautiful talk's too 
 fine for me. I think I'll go now. I didn't ought 
 to have dawdled here. (She quickly brushes 
 away some tears with her hand.) 
 
 BERTRAM (somezvhat annoyed) : You are cry- 
 ing, child. 
 
 ANNIE BROWN : Oh, no, sir. (She gets up and 
 hurries away. MARLOW approaches, puts his 
 glass in his eye, and gases after ANNIE BROWN.) 
 
 LORD MARLOW : A protegee? Younger than 
 your disciples usually are. Ah, to be sure ! That 
 must be the Annie of the violets. My dear Ber- 
 tram, surely, chivalry should suggest that we car- 
 ry the baskets for her. If you will take the one, I 
 will take the other. 
 
 (BERTRAM deigns no answer. He feels consider- 
 ably annoyed, and gazes at the cupola of the 
 hotel near him. MARLOW digs holes in the 
 gravel with his cane.) 
 
 LORD MARLOW: She's got a smart pair of 
 ankles; rather thick but why, oh why, let her 
 69
 
 'A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 wear highlows? They would deform a god- 
 dess. 
 
 BERTRAM (fiercely} : That young person in 
 highlows is my future wife. You will be so 
 good as to make your jokes about some other 
 matter than her ankles. 
 
 (MARLOW stares, utterly incredulous and stupe- 
 fied.) 
 
 LORD MARLOW: Good Lord! You can't mean 
 it! Your wife? Why, you might marry Cicely 
 Seymour if you chose! 
 
 BERTRAM : Be so good as to understand that I 
 shall marry a daughter of the people. 
 
 LORD MARLOW : Oh Lord ! And may I tell so 
 startling a piece of news? 
 
 BERTRAM : You may tell every one. The of- 
 fice of bellman to society is, I believe, congenial 
 to you. 
 
 LORD MARLOW: Eh? Lord, how they will 
 laugh ! They'll die of laughin'. 
 (LORD MARLOW hastens azvay laughing uproari- 
 ously. FANSHAWE now approaches and he, 
 too, fix<*s his eye-glass on the retreating 
 figure of ANNIE. He is of supernatural 
 quickness of observation.) 
 
 FANSHAWE : I saw you from my bedroom win- 
 dow sitting with that young daughter of the 
 sovereign people. I wished for a kodak. The 
 Torch should have had an illuminated Easter 
 number. 
 
 BERTRAM (irritably) : You are fifty minutes 
 late. 
 
 70
 
 'A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 FANSHAWE: My dressing-gown and choco- 
 late pot are dear to me. 
 
 BERTRAM : You always turn night into day. 
 
 FANSHAWE : Night is day in London, as coal 
 and electricity are its summer. Well, shan't we 
 take a hansom to Folliott's? 
 
 BERTRAM : Wait a moment. Sit down here. 
 
 FANSHAWE (seating himself with reluctance} : 
 Why waste time? Let's go and settle your in- 
 heritance. 
 
 BERTRAM : Please go instead of me and say 
 that I refuse. It is very simple. 
 
 FANSHAWE : My dear Bertram ! La nuits porte 
 conseil, and yet you still wish to refuse? 
 
 BERTRAM : Yes, I refuse; and (He pauses, 
 
 then swallows the fishbone desperately} and I 
 am going to marry yonder daughter of the people ! 
 
 FANSHAWE: Ah! Rumor for once is correct, 
 then? 
 
 BERTRAM : Yes, I marry the young woman you 
 saw when you wished for a kodak. 
 (For once FANSHAWE has not a word to say: he 
 is dumb.) 
 
 BERTRAM : You look astonished, yet with your 
 principles 
 
 FANSHAWE : Principles be damned ! They 
 must go to the wall when they trample on com- 
 mon sense. 
 
 BERTRAM (with some maliciousness) : But, 
 surely for you no class divisions exist? There- 
 fore, of course, you will congratulate me as 
 warmly as if my future wife were that abomi- 
 nable thing, a duke's daughter. 
 
 71
 
 'A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 FANSHAWE : There ought to be no race horses, 
 but while there are we will put our money on 
 them. We must take the world as it is or cut our 
 throats in it. You are cutting yours with a bowie 
 knife. I will return to my chocolate pot. 
 (At that instant MRS. BROWN comes down the 
 road out of breath. ANNIE is out of sight.} 
 
 MRS. BROWN : I am come after my daughter, 
 Mr. Bertram, if you please. Soon as I told her 
 ye was here, I was that mad with myself, for 
 it flashed across me she'd come and 
 
 FANSHAWE: And why not, madam? It is, 
 it seems, all en tout bien, tout honneur. 
 
 MRS. BROWN : I don't understand gibberish, 
 sir, but girls should be circumspec'. 
 (FANSHAWE gases at her through his eye-glass.} 
 
 FANSHAWE (aside to BERTRAM): Your 
 mother-in-law to be? 
 
 MRS. BROWN (not hearing, goes on in a rather 
 shrill tone} : I don't mean my daughter to walk 
 along with you, sir, till she's the right to take 
 your arm before everybody. 
 (BERTRAM shudders. FANSHAWE lifts his hat 
 approvingly. ) 
 
 FANSHAWE: Those sentiments madam, do you 
 the highest honor. The quality, as you would 
 call them, are not so severe. Their young 1 ladies 
 sit around on staircases, and flirt in corners with 
 their young men, and meet them in these sylvan 
 groves with a groom as chaperon, without any 
 certainty that matrimony will ever follow. But 
 then the demi vierge is probably confined to the 
 Upper Ten. 
 
 72
 
 'A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 MRS. BROWN (doubtfully} : I don't know about 
 the way o' the gentry, sir, but in our street we're 
 respectable, though we are back o' Portman 
 Square. 
 
 FANSHAWE: Madam! Juvenal himself never 
 implied anything so crushing! Bertram, I ask 
 you again, is this good lady about to be your 
 mother-in-law ? 
 
 BERTRAM : Don't be a fool. 
 
 FANSHAWE : Well, dear madam, it is but right 
 that, standing in this future relation to my 
 friend, you should know this fact : Mr. Bertram 
 has had a very large property left him. 
 
 MRS. BROWN : Lawk a mussy, sir ! 
 
 FANSHAWE: But he is inclined to refuse it on 
 account of his social principles, with which, no 
 doubt, you are acquainted. Now, dear madam, 
 tell us freely your opinion as a person of sound 
 common sense and one who is about to be closely 
 allied to him. Should he refuse it, or should he 
 accept it? 
 
 MRS. BROWN : Dearie, dearie, sir ! How can 
 anybody hev left good money to such a gawk ! 
 
 FANSHAWE (laughing aloud) : When Truth 
 comes out of her well she is seldom polite ! 
 Never mind, Mrs. Brown, you can make your 
 peace with your son-in-law some other time. 
 Only tell us now, for we are going to the lawyers 
 on this momentous errand. Ought he to accept 
 or to refuse? 
 
 (ANNIE'S mother is flattered at the deference to 
 her opinion.) 
 
 MRS. BROWN: Well, sir, it ain't for the like 
 73
 
 A PREMATURE S CI 'A L I S T 
 
 o' me to judge for the likes o' you. But, if ye 
 want my plain opinion, it is this : If he take the 
 proputty he'll look silly. But if he don't take 
 it, he'll be silly; and he'll be sorry all his life. 
 
 BERTRAM : Mrs. Brown, your daughter would 
 not say so. 
 
 MRS. BROWN : Likely not, sir. She's a slim 
 snippet of a girl as 'even't felt any o' the weight 
 o' livin' yet. When she hev she'll know a full 
 money-box is the softest pillar one can lay a 
 tired head on any night. 
 
 FANSHAWE: Mrs. Brown, the classic form of 
 Socrates dwindles before yours ! I place you im- 
 mediately upon the staff of the Torch. 
 
 MRS. BROWN (puzzled} : I don't hold with 
 torches, sir. Sam's link-boy, last week in a great 
 fog, flourishing one about like a fool, set fire 
 to all the straw such a piece of work and 
 Sam warn't hinsured. 
 
 FANSHAWE: I wince under the moral lesson 
 you convey by your apologue to my journal, 
 but 
 
 BERTRAM (very angrily) : How much more 
 time are you going to waste in chaffing this 
 woman ? 
 
 FANSHAWE : Mrs. Brown, your lips drop pearls 
 of wisdom. Yet you are servile, Mrs. Brown. 
 Are we not all equal before the great Bona Dea 
 of Nature ? 
 
 MRS. BROWN (with fine scorn') ; Equal, sir? 
 
 That's his rot; yet when he come to our place 
 
 one day, and we was eatin' good Dutch cheese 
 
 and 'errings, he well-nigh fainted at the stink 
 
 74
 
 A PREMATURE SOCIALIST. 
 
 on 'em. (FANSHAWE laughs delightedly.') He 
 lives on peaches and pineapples, he do (with a 
 snort), and he's spoilt a good seasonable chance 
 o' settlin' herself as my daughter had with the 
 young man round the corner 
 
 BERTRAM (so angry that he falls into low 
 language) : Shut up that jaw, Fanshawe! 
 
 FANSHAWE: Will you go to Folliott & Hake's 
 or not? 
 
 BERTRAM : I will go to Satan's self to stop 
 you chaffing this woman. Look how those peo- 
 ple are laughing. 
 
 (BERTRAM says a hurried good-morning to MRS. 
 BROWN and hastens away. FANSHAWE gets 
 up and follozvs him, waving his hand to MRS. 
 BROWN.) 
 
 FANSHAWE (calls back to MRS. BROWN) : 
 You must come and dine with me at Richmond, 
 Mrs. Socrates. 
 
 SCENE III. CICELY and her cousin, LADY JANE 
 RIVAUX, having taken a fancy to the settee 
 lately occupied by BERTRAM and FANSHAWE, 
 are seated in their places with some men 
 standing before them, talking to them. 
 MARLOW again approaches, diffident, but in 
 ill-concealed triumph. 
 
 LORD MARLOW: Oh, Lady Jane, I've come 
 back 'cos I've got a lot of news, and I am au- 
 thorized to tell it. I've seen "the penny bunch 
 of violets," and by all that's awful, she's a wash- 
 erwoman's daughter, and Bertram's going to 
 
 75
 
 A PREM'ATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 marry her. It's Annieism, you see, not Altru- 
 ism. 
 
 (Much pleased with his own wit and humor he 
 laughs gleefully, whilst his eyes are trying 
 to read CICELY'S face. It gives no sign of 
 any feeling or of having even heard what 
 he has said.) 
 
 LADY JANE RIVAUX : What nonsense you talk, 
 Lord Marlow ! Bertram may be silly, but he is 
 not so utterly out of his mind as that. 
 
 LORD MARLOW: Isn't he? Why, he told me 
 himself not more than an hour ago. The young 
 woman was with him down yonder. She sells 
 flowers, and had got two skips full of primroses ; 
 and she's not a good feature to her face. I'll 
 offer to be best man ; shall I send 'em a set of 
 saucepans or a sewing-machine? ( CICELY casts 
 a look of supreme contempt upon him.) 
 
 CICELY SEYMOUR : The perfection to which 
 you bring your jokes must have cost you a long 
 apprenticeship on Bank Holidays, Lord Alar- 
 low. 
 
 (MARLOW'S mirth is a little subdued.) 
 
 ONE OF THE MEN PRESENT: You can't be 
 speaking seriously. Bertram is not quite such 
 an ass as that. 
 
 LORD MARLOW: I am, though. I've seen the 
 girl, and Bertram told me to tell everybody. 
 
 ANOTHER OF THE MEN PRESENT: What's her 
 name? 
 
 LORD MARLOW : She's Annie Brown ; we heard 
 that yesterday. Mother takes in washing. Oh 
 Lord, it will kill me, the fun of it. (Doubled 
 76
 
 A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 up with silent laughter, LORD MARLOW furtively 
 zvatches CICELY'S face.) 
 
 CICELY SEYMOUR (coldly) : Why should you 
 be surprised that Mr. Bertram puts his theories 
 in practice? It is only like Count Tolstoi's 
 ploughing. 
 
 LORD MARLOW: Oh, I have still another piece 
 of news to communicate. (All seemed greatly 
 curious except CICELY. She fears some new 
 insults for BERTRAM.) It appears that a cousin 
 has left an immense fortune to Bertram in case 
 he will take charge of it; otherwise it goes to 
 Magdalen College. Fanshawe told me he had 
 refused it and that his uncle, Lord Southwold, 
 when he heard about the matter declared his 
 nephew to be as mad as a hatter, and that he 
 ought to be placed in a padded cell. 
 
 LADY JANE RIVAUX: Goodness, Cicely! You 
 surely can't defend such insanity as this. It is 
 very much worse than any plough. 
 
 CICELY SEYMOUR: At all events, whatever it 
 may be, it is certainly only the business of those 
 concerned in it, and none of ours. Why are 
 you not already on your way to the newspaper 
 offices, Lord Marlow? I believe they give a 
 guinea for first news. 
 
 LORD MARLOW (sullenly) : Bertram may be so 
 happy as to interest you, Miss Seymour, but 
 he's an unknown quantity to the world in gen- 
 eral. Nobody'd give twopence for any news of 
 him. 
 
 CICELY SEYMOUR: Certainly he is not chroni- 
 cled as the winner at shooting and polo matches, 
 
 77.
 
 A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 which is your distinction, Lord Marlow, and, I 
 
 believe, your only one. 
 
 (The ladies now rise and bid the gentlemen an 
 
 revoir and slowly walk back alone.) 
 LADY JANE RIVAUX: My dear child, how re- 
 markably severe you are ! And how you do 
 stand up for Wilfred Bertram ! Will you tell 
 me of what use are the incontestable talents he 
 was born with? What does he do with them? 
 Why write in such a manner that if he were 
 a native of any other country than England 
 he would have been lodg'ed in prison years ago? 
 (CICELY SEYMOUR is silent. She looks straight 
 before her with a heightened color, and her 
 lips are pressed together in irritation.) 
 LADY JANE RIVAUX : I suppose you will offer 
 to be bridesmaid to Miss Annie Brown? (sar- 
 castically.) 
 
 CICELY SEYMOUR (coldly) : Why not? One 
 attends many weddings brought about by more 
 ignoble motives. 
 
 LADY JANE RIVAUX : You will riot see me at 
 the ceremony ! 
 
 CICELY SEYMOUR : I know I shall not, nor any 
 of his relatives. But I do not admire the class 
 prejudice which will keep you all away. 
 (The ladies saunter on till they come to where 
 MRS. BROWN is resting her rheumatic limbs 
 on a bench.) 
 
 LADY JANE RIVAUX : Let's sit down a moment, 
 Cicely. 
 
 (MRS. BROWN rises and curtsies, taking up her 
 basket.) 
 
 78
 
 'A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 LADY JANE RIVAUX: Don't get up, my good 
 woman, there's room enough. 
 
 MRS. BROWN (standing erect, her empty bas- 
 ket held before her like a shield of Boadicea) : 
 Your 'umble servant, ma'am. 
 
 CICELY SEYMOUR: Why should you stand? 
 These seats are free to all. 
 
 MRS. BROWN : Thanks, miss, but I know my 
 duty. (Insinuatingly) If you'd be wanting a 
 laundress, ma'am, you'd be doin' a charity to re- 
 member me Eliza Brown, o' 22 Little Double 
 Street, back o' Portman Square; no acids used, 
 miss, and no machine work. 
 (CICELY looks at her and with some hesitation 
 asks:) 
 
 CICELY SEYMOUR : Are you are you the 
 mother of a young person called Annie Brown? 
 She went past here a short time ago with some 
 primroses. 
 
 MRS. BROWN : Yes, miss, I be. 
 
 LADY JANE RIVAUX: Of Mr. Bertram's hero- 
 ine ! ( laughing. ) 
 
 MRS. BROWN : Please 'm, don't call her names, 
 ma'am. She's a good girl, though I say it as 
 shouldn't say it, and there's naught to laugh at, 
 unless it be the gentleman's rubbish. 
 
 LADY JANE RIVAUX (amused) : You don't 
 seem to be grateful for the compliment he pays 
 your family. 
 
 MRS. BROWN (with much excitement) : Com- 
 pliment is it, my lady ? The gentleman's a crank, 
 that's what he is; he won't ever marry her, and 
 there's a good young man around the corner as 
 79
 
 A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 is left out in the cold. He's in the green-grocery 
 line, and hev got a good bit o' money laid by, 
 and the match 'ud be suitable in every way, for 
 my daughter's a good judge o' green stuff. 
 
 CICELY SEYMOUR : Mrs. Brown, I should like 
 to have the pleasure of knowing your daughter. 
 Will you bring her to see me ? I am staying with 
 Mr. Bertram's aunt, Lady Southwold. 
 (MRS. BROWN stares hard and is quite stunned 
 for a time.'} 
 
 MRS. BROWN : You do my girl a great honor. 
 Poor folks, miss, ain't got no place with rich 
 'uns. 
 
 CICELY SEYMOUR : That is rather a narrow 
 feeling, Mrs. Brown ; and surely your daughter 
 ought to begin to know Mr. Bertram's friends 
 and relatives. 
 
 MRS. BROWN (with decision} : She won't be 
 naught to Mr. Bertram, miss. Tis a pack of 
 stuff their thinkin' on it. Lord, my lady, if you 
 only see his shirts, that fine as cobwebs is coarse 
 to 'em. 
 
 LADY JANE RIVAUX (much diverted, aside 
 to CICELY) : She evidently does not believe in the 
 seriousness of Bertram's attentions. 
 
 MRS. BROWN (tucking her basket under her 
 arm} : You'll excuse me, my ladies, if I don't 
 stay to prate. Us poor folks 'even't got time to 
 lose in gossip; and if you can give me work 'm 
 I'll be truly thankful to you, ma'am Eliza 
 Brown, 22, Little Double Street, back of Port- 
 man Square. Your servant, ladies ! 
 
 (MRS. BROWN bobs a curtsey and departs.) 
 80
 
 A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 CICELY SEYMOUR : A nice honest woman. 
 (LADY JANE laughs. CICELY traces patterns on 
 the gravel zvith her sunshade.) 
 
 CICELY SEYMOUR: I should like to see the 
 girl. 
 
 LADY JANE RIVAUX : Why ? You may be sure 
 she is a little horror. 
 
 CICELY SEYMOUR: I am sure she is a very 
 good girl. A person must be good that lives 
 amongst flowers. 
 
 LADY JANE RIVAUX (out of patience) : Flor- 
 ists are not all saints, and it does not seem an 
 exalted mission to make buttonholes for mashers. 
 There is not even the excuse of good looks for 
 Bertram's aberration. She is quite a plain little 
 thing, Marlow says. 
 
 CICELY SEYMOUR: Let us take another turn. 
 We shall see the children again.
 
 r t 
 
 A r t
 
 A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 ACT III. 
 
 SCENE I. BERTRAM'S rooms are en suite, one 
 out of another, and from the door-mat he can 
 sec through all four of them, between the 
 curtains of Eastern stuffs which he has 
 brought home from Tiftis. He cannot be- 
 lieve in the siglit which meets his eyes in the 
 third room, which is his study. There is in 
 that room a large Florentine cabinet of tor- 
 toise-shell and brass-work; the key of the 
 drawers thereof is on his watch-chain; yet 
 he perceives that the drawers are all open, 
 their contents are strewn about, and stoop- 
 ing down over them is CRITCHETT. 
 BERTRAM (walking noiselessly over the floor, 
 
 touches him on the shoulder) : You ! a common 
 
 thief ! 
 
 (CRITCHETT stumbles to his feet, pulls himself 
 erect rather nervously, and faces his em- 
 ployer. ) 
 CRITCHETT : I beg pardon, sir. I thought you 
 
 had gone to Mr. Domville's. I was coming 
 
 down with the valise. 
 
 (BERTRAM takes the pearls out of his grasp; he 
 has grown much paler than his nefarious 
 valet. He is cut to the heart.) 
 85
 
 'A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 BERTRAM : A common thief you ! ( The "Et 
 tu, Brute!" had not more pathetic reproval in it. 
 CRITCHETT in the interval has recovered his self- 
 possession, and what more vulgar persons would 
 call his cheek.} 
 
 CRITCHETT: Excuse me, sir. There aren't 
 such a thing as theft. What is called theft is 
 only an over- violent readjustment of unfairly 
 divided values. I've read it in the Age to Come. 
 
 BERTRAM : You infernal scoundrel ! These are 
 my dead mother's jewels. 
 
 CRITCHETT: I know they were, sir. But they 
 are doing no good here ; and you told the ladies 
 yesterday as all jewelry was an abomination. 
 
 BERTRAM : This is probably not the first time 
 by many that you have robbed me? 
 
 CRITCHETT: I let nobody else steal a farthing 
 from you, sir. 
 
 BERTRAM : Indeed ! You like vicarious virtue. 
 How could you open the cabinet? It has a 
 Bramah lock? 
 
 CRITCHETT: And this here's a Bramah pick- 
 lock, sir. (Displays an elegant little tool) 
 
 BERTRAM : You infernal scoundrel ! If I did my 
 duty, I should give you to the police. 
 
 CRITCHETT : Oh, no, sir, you couldn't do that to 
 be consistent; and consistency is the first of vir- 
 tues. I've heard you say that prevention is sug- 
 gestion, and that if there was no constables 
 there'd be no crime. In locking up this cabinet 
 you put into my mind the idea of opening it. It 
 is you, sir, who are to blame, not I. (CRITCHETT 
 smiles demurely as he repeats these words, then 
 86
 
 A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 continues:} You have debased me, sir, by making 
 me fill a servile office. No man should serve an- 
 other. You've said so often. 
 
 BERTRAM (unspeakably annoyed and dis- 
 tressed} : I believed in you, Critchett. 
 
 CRITCHETT (smiles} : I know you did, sir; you 
 believe in a lot o' things as won't wash. 
 
 BERTRAM : And you feel no remorse for hav- 
 ing deceived me? 
 
 CRITCHETT : No, sir. Remorse aren't seen out- 
 side of theatres, I think. Tis a word, sir. Tis 
 only a word. 
 
 (BERTRAM is silent. The cheap cynicism of this 
 man, who has lived beside him during a 
 dozen years, is revolting.} 
 
 BERTRAM (after a pause) : You are aware that 
 I could have you arrested? 
 
 CRITCHETT: No, sir, you couldn't. You'd be 
 giving the lie to all your own theories. Try and 
 look at it philosophic-like, sir. 
 
 BERTRAM (Tvith a longing to call up the po- 
 liceman now passing by the rails of the Green 
 Park} : Take your wage for the coming month 
 and be gone! (Throws a five-pound note on the 
 table.} 
 
 CRITCHETT: It is usual to give more than a 
 month's anticipatory honorarium on parting af- 
 ter such a long association. 
 
 BERTRAM (excited}: You impudent villain! 
 The only payment you deserve is the treadmill. 
 Do not stretch my patience too far. 
 (CRITCHETT perceives that his long docile vic- 
 tim is roused, and may become dangerous.) 
 87
 
 'A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 CRITCHETT (meekly} : Would you wish to ex- 
 amine my portmanteau, sir? 
 
 BERTRAM : No, begone ! 
 
 CRITCHETT (bowing very low} : I have only 
 put your theories into practice, sir, and you'll 
 be sorry if you send me away. You won't find 
 another Critchett very easily. 
 (BERTRAM turns his back on him. The man at 
 last having departed he picks up various ob- 
 jects and begins to replace them in the draw- 
 ers of the cabinet. The sight of his mother's 
 jewels also saddens him. He had been her 
 favorite son and he had loved her dearly.} 
 
 ANNIE BROWN (entering timidly through the 
 anteroom, of which CRITCHETT had left the door 
 open behind him. She wears the same clothes as 
 she wore in the Park, but she carries no bas- 
 ket on her arms} : Lord's sakes, sir, what hev 
 happened ? 
 
 BERTRAM : Critchett is a thief, Annie. I caught 
 him in the act. 
 
 ANNIE BROWN (not astonished} : Mother al- 
 ways knew he was so, sir. But she didn't dare 
 to tell you. You were so fond of him. 
 
 BERTRAM": How could she possibly know? 
 
 ANNIE BROWN : Well, sir, he was always 
 a-boasting of 'ow he fleeced you. I believe all 
 the gentlemen's gentlemen in these 'ere parts o' 
 London know how he tricked ye. Lord, sir, he 
 even pawned your shirts ! 
 
 BERTRAM : Why didn't you warn me? 
 
 ANNIE BROWN : Well, you see, sir, we didn't 
 like to lose a man his place. 
 88
 
 A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 BERTRAM: You condoned a felony sooner? 
 
 ANNIE BROWN: Please, sir, I don't know what 
 that is. But poor folk don't never take the bread 
 out o' each other's mouths. And, besides, you 
 wouldn't have believed anybody against Critchett, 
 sir. You were that wrapped in him. 
 
 BERTRAM (with great sadness) : How cruelly 
 one may be deceived. 
 
 ANNIE BROWN (sympathetically) : Tis easy to 
 deceive you, sir, as instead of seeing people as 
 they is, you see 'em as you fancy 'em to be. 
 
 BERTRAM : Perhaps so. I fear I am a greater 
 fool than I thought. 
 
 ANNIE BROWN: Oh, no, sir; only too trustin'- 
 like. 
 
 BERTRAM (much irritated') : Well, well, Crit- 
 chett is a thing of the past. We will never speak 
 of him again. But why have you come to my 
 rooms, my dear girl? It is not quite correct. 
 Caesar's wife, you know. But perhaps you never 
 heard of her 
 
 ANNIE BROWN: No, sir. Who was the lady? 
 I only came to say a word, Mr. Bertram. There 
 aren't no harm in it, though mother would be 
 angry over to the place. 
 
 BERTRAM : If you would have sent me a line I 
 would have called on you. 
 
 ANNIE BROWN : You see, sir, mother and sister 
 Kate's at home. They'd hear every word, and 
 I want to speak to you all alone. I won't be 
 many minutes. I don't think it's any harm corn- 
 in', though mother would be fit to kill me if she 
 
 knew 
 
 89
 
 A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 BERTRAM : Your mother is quite right in her 
 views, Annie. Young women cannot be too cir- 
 cumspect. 
 
 ANNIE BROWN : I'm always circumspec', sir ; 
 and oh, Lord, Mr. Bertram, what a beautiful 
 string o' pearls ! 
 
 BERTRAM : They were my mother's, Annie. 
 They will be yours. 
 
 ANNIE BROWN : Mine, sir ! Lord, never ! The 
 idea of Critchett takin' them pearls. Why they 
 must be worth thousands and thousands of 
 pounds ! 
 
 BERTRAM : No, some hundreds. My mother 
 left these things to me for my wife when I 
 should have one. They are very sacred to me. 
 They will be as dear to you, Annie, I am sure. 
 
 ANNIE BROWN (very positively') : Oh, sir, 
 they'll never be mine. You might as well talk 
 of my wearin' the crown of England. 
 
 BERTRAM : Always low and servile compari- 
 sons, Annie ! 
 
 ANNIE BROWN : Lord, sir, be a queen's crown 
 low? 
 
 BERTRAM : To think of it as a desirable and en- 
 viable thing is extremely low. 
 
 ANNIE BROWN : I am afraid, sir, I don't un- 
 derstand. Will you please put up these pearls? 
 They're that beautiful I don't dare touch 'em. 
 
 BERTRAM : They will be my wife's. Therefore, 
 I repeat, they will be yours. 
 
 ANNIE BROWN : That's what I come to say to 
 you, sir. What we have thought of won't never 
 be. Can't never be. 'Tisn't in reason. When 
 90
 
 'A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 the bus run over me last year and you picked me 
 up and took me 'ome you seemed like a prince 
 to me, sir 
 
 BERTRAM : Always vulgar and servile compari- 
 sons. 
 
 ANNIE BROWN : And when you come about 
 our place, mother said to me, "That gent don't 
 mean no good, and it's the broom I'll take to 
 him;" and Sam, he said, "If he's barter Hann 
 I'll give 'im a 'iding." And then you said we was 
 to marry, and mother said it was all moonshine, 
 and Sam didn't like the idea of it ; but you said it 
 would be a beautiful example to all classes, and 
 I I well, I couldn't believe my ears, Mr. Ber- 
 tram. 
 
 BERTRAM (sorely tried} : What is the use of 
 going over all this ground, Annie? 
 
 ANNIE BROWN : I want you to understand, 
 sir. I've been thinkin' and thinkin' of all you, 
 said yesterday, and I see, sir, as how you haven't 
 a mite o' love for me, and it makes me feel cold 
 all over like 
 
 BERTRAM (irritated) : Oh, why do you want 
 love? I have the highest respect for you, which 
 I am about to prove in the strongest manner that 
 any man can prove his sentiments 
 
 ANNIE BROWN: Yes, I know, sir; but 
 but 
 
 BERTRAM (loftily) : There are finer sentiments 
 than love! 
 
 ANNIE BROWN : Perhaps there are, sir, for the 
 quality. But love's poor people's feast; the only 
 
 91
 
 'A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 one they ever knows all their days. And you 
 don't love me ? 
 
 (ANNIE looks at BERTRAM fixedly. He is embar- 
 rassed. ) 
 
 BERTRAM (evasively) : Should I have given 
 you my mother's pearls, if I did not? 
 
 ANNIE BROWN (with sad certitude) : You 
 haven't giv' 'em to me, and I haven't took 'em. 
 Some other than me'll wear 'em. I came to say 
 to you, Mr. Bertram, that I won't never marry 
 you. Mother says as 'ow you've come into a 
 great fortune ; but whether you're rich or poor, 
 that's nothing' to me. I won't marry you, 'cos 
 we'd be miserable ; and that's what I come here 
 all alone to-day to say to you. 
 
 BERTRAM (irritated) : You are faithless, An- 
 nie! 
 
 ANNIE BROWN: No, sir; I'm faithful. I'll re- 
 member ye all my days. P'rhaps 1 11 marry, p'r- 
 haps I won't; but I'll never forget you, and I'll 
 pray for you every night. 
 
 (BERTRAM is touched and astonished.) 
 
 BERTRAM : But my dear little girl, you have my 
 word of honor. I can't retract it. I will try and 
 make you happy, Annie. 
 
 ANNIE BROWN : I'm sure you would try, sir ; 
 but you couldn't do it. You'd make me miserable 
 and you would be miserable. You haven't any 
 love for me; you have said you hadn't. I couldn't 
 live without the poor man's feast-love. 
 
 BERTRAM : You don't understand what a sin- 
 cere regard I have for you, how honestly I will 
 try to do my duty by you. 
 92
 
 A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 ANNIE BROWN : Sir, I ain't no more fit for you 
 than my poor sun-browned throat be fit for a 
 lady's jewels. You've had a hobby, and you've 
 rid it hard, and I was a part of it for awhile. But 
 'twas only fancy. Lord! how clear I saw it all 
 when you spoke so scornful-like of love ! Love 
 may be a ordinary valleyless sort o' thing like but- 
 tercups and daisies, but how them little blossoms 
 do make a glory on a dusty common. It's the 
 buttercups and daisies as I want, sir; not them 
 cold white pearls. 
 
 BERTRAM : Poor little Annie ! I can't give you 
 what I have not. 
 
 ANNIE BROWN : No, sir, that's just it. The 
 fault ain't none o' yours. Don't think I blame ye, 
 sir, or cast a word against ye. We are as we are 
 made. But it is good-bye, sir, and good-bye it 
 must be forever. Don't ye worry or fret. We're 
 too wide apart, and 'twas folly to think as we 
 could ever be one. (ANNIE'S voice breaks dozvn, 
 her tears fall; BERTRAM takes her hands in his 
 and kisses her on the forehead.) 
 
 BERTRAM : Dear little Annie ! I feel as if I 
 had sinned against you ! and yet God knows I 
 had the best intentions ; and if I deceived anyone, 
 I deceived myself first of all. 
 (The tramp of heavy steps is heard and AN- 
 NIE'S elder brother SAM dashes the cur- 
 tains aside, wildly flourishing a driving- 
 
 . ivhip. ) 
 
 SAM : Yah ! Bloated aristocrat ! I've nabbed 
 ye at last. Shame on ye! Shame on ye, too, 
 Hann ! (Beginning to yell at the top of his voice 
 
 93
 
 A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 to his sister:} Out of this room, gal, whilst I 
 gi'e your bloomin' nob the lickin' he deserves. 
 (Turning to BERTRAM and flourishing his whip :) 
 'Tis for this we pore workin'-folks toils and moils 
 and starves, to hev our wimmen folks trod under 
 foot like dirt by blackguard swells ! Sister Kate, 
 at 'ome, says to me, "Sam, run quick and ye'll 
 catch 'em together;" and I meets yer servant in 
 the street, an' he says, too, "Run, Sam, and ye'll 
 catch 'em together." But I never thought, re- 
 spectable as our fam'ly is, and so mealy-mouthed 
 as is Sister Hann 
 
 BERTRAM (coldly interposes) : When you have 
 done yelling, my good youth, will you listen to 
 a word of common sense ? 
 
 ANNIE BROWN (hurriedly} : Oh, Sam, are you 
 mad? Kate never meant anything of the kind. 
 You know Mr. Bertram has ever treated me as 
 if I was a waxworks under a glass case. 
 
 BERTRAM : Take off your hat, put down your 
 whip, apologize to your sister, and listen to me. 
 (But the youth is in no mood to hear or obey. 
 He has taken a glass of gin with a fellow- 
 cabby, and his blood is on fire.) 
 
 SAM: I won't listen to you nor to nobody. 
 Ye'll get your thrashin' at last, you scoundrel, 
 as preaches to the pore. (He advances to 
 BERTRAM, whirling his horsewhip, with a broken 
 lash, above his head. BERTRAM eyes him calmly, 
 remembers Old Oxford rows, straightens his 
 arm and meets him with a scientific blow which 
 sends him backward on the floor.) 
 
 BERTRAM : Don't scream, Annie. I have not 
 94
 
 'A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 hurt your brother; but he must have a lesson. 
 (Picks up the whip, breaks it in two and throws 
 the pieces in a corner; then turns to SAM.) Get 
 up, you dolt, and ask your sister's pardon for 
 brawling in her presence. (SAM does get up 
 stupidly and sloivly, looks around him bewildered, 
 with a dazed, blind look.) 
 
 SAM : You hits uncommon. 
 
 BERTRAM : Certainly, I hit hard when I hit at 
 all. You insulted me, and, more gravely still, 
 your sister. I am perfectly ready to marry her 
 but she will not marry me. Can you put that into 
 your brain and understand it? (SAM stares and 
 rubs his aching head.) 
 
 SAM : Lord, sir, do you mean as Hann hev 
 jilted you? 
 
 ANNIE BROWN (impetuously) : Oh, Sam, how 
 can you? 
 
 BERTRAM (with a slight smile) : I believe that 
 is what you would call it in your world. Your 
 sister does not wish to marry me. She thinks 
 perhaps she is right that I am not worthy of 
 her. 
 
 ANNIE BROWN : Oh, Mr. Bertram ! I never 
 
 BERTRAM : She is my dear little friend. She 
 will always be my friend, and if you persume to 
 slight or worry her in any kind of way, you will 
 have to deal with me. You know now how I 
 treat affronts. 
 
 SAM (still stupid and ruefully rubbing his 
 pate) : Lawk a mussy! If you would be spliced 
 to her she is a darn fool. 
 
 BERTRAM : She is a little sage and a little saint. 
 95
 
 A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 See her safe home, and there are two sovereigns 
 to buy a new whip. 
 
 ANNIE BROWN : Oh, don't take the money, 
 Sam. 
 
 SAM (pocketing the sovereigns} : Strikes me, 
 Mister, you owes me more than that. Tis as- 
 sault and battery. 
 
 BERTRAM (very decidedly) : I shall give you 
 no more money. I will knock you down again 
 if you like. 
 
 ANNIE BROWN (pulling SAM toward the 
 door) : 'Come away, Sam oh, Sam, aren't you 
 ashamed? 
 
 SAM : Naw, I ain't. Kate says, "Run and you'll 
 find them together." Critchett says, "Run and 
 you'll find them together." I run and I did find 
 ye together. How was I to know? 
 
 ANNIE BROWN (in anguish) : Oh, come away, 
 Sam. Come away. You disgrace yourself and 
 me. I'll tell mother. (SAM is suddenly subdued 
 and alarmed.) 
 
 SAM : Naw, don't tell mother. (He starts for 
 the door.) 
 
 ANNIE BROWN: Oh, Mr. Bertram, I am so 
 ashamed. Do pray forgive him. He is only a 
 lad. 
 
 BERTRAM (smiling down upon her tenderly) : 
 I would forgive him much heavier offenses. He 
 is your brother. 
 
 ANNIE BROWN (softly, looking back at BER- 
 TRAM as she goes out of the door) : God bless 
 you, sir. 
 
 BERTRAM (meditatively and tenderly) : Dear 
 96
 
 A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 little girl ! Dear honest little girl. Ah, how easy 
 to have learned to love a Daughter of the Peo- 
 ple. Aye, the People, those toiling mil- 
 lions who have tilled the earth, woven its fabrics, 
 reared its palaces, mined its metals, fought its 
 battles, for whom? Why, for its hard task- 
 masters of the past, its rapacious money-kings of 
 the present ! Alack and alack ! When will the 
 People resolve to be their own taskmasters and 
 by so doing render their tasks easy and their 
 burden light? 
 
 SCENE II. Much the same party of ladies 
 and gentlemen, who attended BER- 
 TRAM'S lecture, are present in a beautiful 
 Italian garden, at once splendid, majestic, 
 and homelike, with an artistic fountain play- 
 ing in the centre. On a charming elevation 
 not far distant gleams, on this golden August 
 afternoon, a fine English castle. It is one 
 of the country homes of LORD SOUTHWOLD. 
 Neither LORD SOUTHWOLD nor BERTRAM have 
 yet arrived, although the party, tired of wait- 
 ing f r them, are partaking of light refresh- 
 ments; ivith the exception of tivo or three 
 couples, who are waltzing in and out among 
 the shrubbery to some gay dance music ren- 
 dered by a small band of musicians grouped 
 under a stately tree. Most of the party are 
 seated in the vicinity of LADY SOUTHWOLD on 
 picturesque garden seats, though some are 
 lounging on grassy slopes. The curtain rises 
 in the midst of the gay dance music, reveal- 
 97
 
 'A PREM'ATURE S C I 'A L I S T 
 
 ing the waltzers flitting in and out of view 
 among the trees and slanting sunbeams. 
 LADY SOUTHWOLD: Now my good friends of 
 the nimble feet, please be seated. One of our num- 
 ber has consented to sing for us a thrilling love- 
 song that she learned to warble in Italy while 
 under the instruction of a great Italian Maestro 
 who in his prime sang with Patti. 
 (No sooner has the great singer's name left the 
 lips of LADY SOUTHWOLD than all group 
 themselves together in expectant silence. The 
 singer takes her place near the musicians and 
 renders her song, after which there is an in- 
 stant of silence follozved by very hearty ap- 
 plause, so long continued that she is forced 
 to repeat the last stanza. Again there is ap- 
 plause and a buzz of congratulations as she 
 takes her seat near her hostess and is handed 
 a cup of tea and some cakes by a servant in 
 livery.} 
 
 LORD MARLOW : If Socialism was on now all 
 love-songs would be burnt and the throats of their 
 singers silenced or slit. We should have instead 
 fraternal sentiments set to music like that of 
 "Onward, Christian Soldiers." How would you 
 enjoy the change, (LORD MARLOW turns to the 
 singer near him) Miss Norma? 
 
 THE SINGER (laughing with others') : What 
 nonsense you indulge in, Lord Marlow! But if 
 it ever came to pass that Socialism or any other 
 ism did away with love-songs I should slit my 
 throat myself. 
 SEVERAL TOGETHER : Bravo ! Bravo !
 
 'A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 CYNICAL YOUNG MAN: What is love? Can 
 anyone present define it ? 
 
 CICELY SEYMOUR (with a tender glance} : Love 
 is sympathy, devotion, bliss. 
 
 LORD MARLOW (irritated that CICELY does not 
 love him) : I beg your pardon, Miss Seymour, 
 but love in these days is merely a desire for an- 
 nexation of property. The greater the property 
 to be annexed the greater the love, the devotion, 
 the bliss. 
 
 OLD BACHELOR: I would define love as il- 
 lusion. 
 
 THE OLD DUKE (meditatively) : True true. 
 We have an ideal in mind and temporarily endow 
 some person with its divinity to wake presently 
 and find ourselves deceived. Then we are angry 
 with this person when we should be angry with 
 ourselves. 
 
 LADY SOUTHWOLD: If love soon proves an 
 illusion after marriage it is often because a woman 
 is slow to learn that if she wants her way she 
 must give her husband his. 
 
 LORD MARLOW : But ideals and tastes differ. 
 Giovanni Dupre's ideal of bliss was to see his 
 wife ironing linen, while his mother-in-law looked 
 on. In one respect Giovanni was to be envied. 
 So long as his wife could hold an iron and his 
 mother-in-law look on he could be sure of his 
 bliss. With the most of us love is a short state 
 of imbecile adoration followed by a desire to kick 
 ourselves all over creation. (A general laugh.) 
 
 OLD BACHELOR: The trouble with most wo- 
 men in love is that they give us too much of a good 
 99
 
 'A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 thing, whence comes indigestion. Of a fit of love- 
 indigestion no one recovers ; whereas, if one is 
 merely starved it is possible to revive and tnrive 
 after a few coy glances. 
 
 LADY SOUTHWOLD : Let us agree that not many 
 people have minds of sufficient charm and origi- 
 nality to long endure an intimacy of the nature 
 that love demands 
 
 LORD MARLOW (impatiently') : What has mind 
 to do with it? Great men like Shakespeare, 
 Goethe, Milton, Michael Angelo, Raphael, have 
 either set us the example of loving and marrying 
 women without any minds at all or of not marry- 
 ing. In the case of Buddha he loved and married 
 but afterwards repudiated his wife. 
 
 LADY SOUTHWOLD (tenaciously) : The mind 
 has something to do with successful love-making 
 even in animals. Why should the lion prefer one 
 lioness to another? It is true that Bertram ap- 
 pears to believe that Socialism will content itself 
 with prudence and esteem. 
 
 LADY JANE RIVAUX (vivaciously') : If men 
 could be made to believe that Socialism would 
 put away the love-making of the past even of 
 the annexing sort of to-day how they would im- 
 prove the present ! 
 
 LORD MARLOW : Ah, Lady Jane, you have given 
 us a bright idea! We should be up and doing 
 in love-making. (He rises at once, approaches 
 LADY JANE RIVAUX and pretends to be about to 
 fing his arms about her, at the same time treat- 
 ing her to melting glances and smacking his lips 
 loudly. Others follow his example. No one 
 
 100
 
 seems to be particular whom they make love^ to 
 only making sure that it is done energetically, 
 robustly, ardently. The oldest woman present is 
 made love to the most abjectly, her pretended 
 lover getting dozun on his knees and paying his 
 part zc'/Y/z all the devotion of a Romeo. . Each man 
 present seems to endeavor to outdo the rest.} 
 
 LADY SOUTHWOLD (who has a headache, soon 
 tiring of the nonsense observes in a dignified man- 
 ner) : Brandes says that "love as a sentiment 
 was unknown in a state of nature and was created 
 with the first petticoat." Petticoats are undoubt- 
 edly responsible for a great deal of mischief done 
 in the world, but if they have raised us from the 
 level of the cattle they deserve the gratitude of 
 men. 
 
 CICELY SEYMOUR (dreamily): Poor cattle! 
 They have as much poetry in their soft eyes as 
 there is in many a poem of love. 
 
 LADY SOUTHWOLD: Ah, by the way, we have 
 been buying some new cattle They are fine, sleek 
 creatures. Suppose, Lord Marlow, you take the 
 party to see them. They are well worth looking 
 at. Excuse me that I remain here sipping my tea. 
 My head is still aching a little. 
 
 CICELY SEYMOUR (seating herself nearer LADY 
 
 SOUTHWOLD) : And I will keep you company. 
 
 (The rest troop away in twos and threes. LORD 
 
 SOUTHWOLD is now seen approaching the 
 
 garden as fast as his gouty toe will permit. 
 
 He begins to shout to his wife while yet at 
 
 some distance.) 
 
 LORD SOUTHWOLD: It's true! It's perfectly 
 101
 
 A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 true! It's been left him and he won't have it 
 can you believe that? He won't have it! 
 
 LADY SOUTHWOLD : I can believe it of him. 
 
 LORD SOUTHWOLD (dropping down on a seat 
 with a crushed air) : Well, I can't, though I've 
 heard him say it with my own ears. And he said, 
 ''What could it possibly matter to us?" 
 
 CICELY SEYMOUR: Well, dear Lord South- 
 wold, why should it matter? 
 
 LORD SOUTHWOLD: Why? Why? 
 
 LADY SOUTHWOLD: Why? Oh, Cicely! 
 
 CICELY SEYMOUR: Well, why? (impatiently.) 
 If Mr. Bertram likes to live a poor man instead 
 of becoming a rich one, what business is it of any- 
 body ? 
 
 LORD SOUTHWOLD (with a big sigh) : Oh 
 Lord! 
 
 LADY SOUTHWOLD: Good heavens, Cicely! 
 You might as well ask what does a man's suicide 
 matter to his family. 
 
 CICELY SEYMOUR : Suicide is a disgrace or at 
 least it is esteemed so. This is an honor. 
 
 LORD AND LADY SOUTHWOLD (both in one 
 breath) : An honor! 
 
 CICELY SEYMOUR : A very rare honor to have 
 
 a relative who in these days has the, courage and 
 
 loyalty to principle to refuse a fortune. 
 
 (LORD SOUTHWOLD is too utterly amazed and 
 
 shocked to have any power to answer her.) 
 
 LADY SOUTHWOLD: My dear girl, this is very 
 far-fetched. You are talking great nonsense, and 
 approving great folly. I cannot believe that even 
 
 102
 
 'A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 my nephew, Wilfred, will be capable of adhering 
 to such a crazy and thankless decision. 
 
 CICELY SEYMOUR (warmly) : I am sure he 
 will adhere to it. At least if he does not I shall 
 be very much mistaken in him. Do you think 
 that his principles are mere sugared beigncts, 
 mere frothy souffles of eggs and cream ? 
 
 LORD SOUTH WOLD (with a snort like an angry 
 horse) : His principles ! Do you mean those 
 preposterous tomfooleries with which he enter- 
 tained us at his rooms ? 
 
 CICELY SEYMOUR : I mean the doctrines taught 
 in his own journal. He is a Socialist, a Mazzin- 
 ist, a Tolstoist. How could such a man, with any 
 consistency, accept a great fortune? 
 
 LADY SOUTHWOLD (with unkind incisiveness) : 
 My dear Cicely, only a great fortune could get 
 such opinions forgiven him. As he is going to 
 marry a washerwoman's daughter, he will cer- 
 tainly never get her into society on any less in- 
 come than thirty thousand a year ! 
 
 LORD SOUTHWOLD (savagely) : He will not 
 want to get her into society! Nobody gathers a 
 dog-rose to put it under a forcing-frame ! 
 
 LADY SOUTHWOLD (suddenly) : John, do you 
 think it would be of any use if I went and tried 
 to persuade him to suspend his decision ? 
 
 LORD SOUTHWOLD: Not the slightest. But 
 you might try. Tell him it's flying in the face 
 of Providence. 
 
 (At this moment who is seen approaching but 
 BERTRAM himself. He looks fagged and 
 worn out. There is a dead silence. LORD 
 103
 
 r A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 and LADY SOUTHWOLD stare blankly at him. 
 CICELY rises from her bower of roses, and 
 holds out her hand with a charming smile.} 
 
 CICELY SEYMOUR (in a kind, sweet voice} : 
 Let me congratulate you on your marriage, Mr. 
 Bertram. 
 
 (BERTRAM looks at her with a little embarrass- 
 ment.} 
 
 BERTRAM : It is very good of you, Miss Sey- 
 mour; you are the only person who has said a 
 kind word 
 
 LORD SOUTHWOLD (ivith great ire} : A kind 
 word ! Can you expect kind words ? 
 
 LADY SOUTHWOLD: My dear Wilfred, when 
 you afflict and disgrace us so ? 
 (BERTRAM silences them with an impatient 
 movement.} 
 
 BERTRAM : Allow me to speak. My marriage 
 will not disgrace you for it will not take place 
 
 LADY SOUTHWOLD : Thank God ! 
 
 BERTRAM : It is not I who have withdrawn. 
 It is it is Miss Brown, with the consent of her 
 family. But I did not come to speak of this mat- 
 ter, which is one purely personal ; one with which 
 I was not aware you were acquainted. I came 
 to apologize to Lord Southwold for my rudeness 
 yesterday. 
 
 LORD SOUTHWOLD: All right, all right! I'm 
 afraid I used strong language myself ; but really, 
 your pig-headed illusions are so uncommonly try- 
 ing to a plain, ordinary man like myself 
 
 LADY SOUTHWOLD (in great an.victy} : And 
 you haven't refused the inheritance, Wilfred? 
 104
 
 'A PREMATURE S C I'A L 1 S T 
 
 BERTRAM : I have refused, certainly ; I have 
 signed and sealed a refusal. 
 
 (LORD SOUTH WOLD emits a very wicked word; 
 his wife groans aloud. CICELY SEYMOUR, 
 who has gone back to the roses, listens with 
 interest and approval. BERTRAM seats him- 
 self.) 
 
 BERTRAM (softly) : Miss Seymour does not 
 blame me. 
 
 CICELY SEYMOUR : No ; I should have done as 
 you have done. 
 
 BERTRAM (very gravely) : Thanks. (Then he 
 takes a registered letter out of his pocket.) I 
 have just received this. Will you allow me to 
 read it to you? It was sent to me by the poor 
 vicar of a village in the Pontine Marshes, near 
 which my cousin met his death. He says that my 
 cousin dictated it as he lay dying in his pres- 
 bytery, and the priest wrote it. It has been sent 
 to me through the Embassy in Rome. Hence 
 the delay. To Folliott, the man of business had 
 telegraphed. The letter is in Italian. I propose 
 to translate it for you, for I think my uncle and 
 you do not know that language. 
 (BERTRAM speaks to his aunt, but he looks at 
 CICELY. ) 
 
 LADY SOUTHWOLD : No, we do not understand 
 Italian. Let us have it, my dear Wilfred. 
 
 BERTRAM (reads) : "I am a dead man. An 
 old tusker has let the life out of me forever. You 
 will get this when I am gone. 1 wish we had 
 known each other. I have left you all I possess, 
 not because you are a relative, but because I 
 105
 
 A PREMATURE S C I ~A L I S T 
 
 think you will do good with it. I have not been 
 a student, but I have read some numbers of your 
 journal, and though I do not agree with all your 
 opinions, I see you care for the poor. Come and 
 live on my lands and you will have enough work 
 cut out for you. I have not done my duty do 
 yours." 
 
 (They are all silent. LADY SOUTHWOLD has tears 
 in her eyes.} 
 
 BERTRAM : In a postscript he asks me to take 
 care of his dogs and horses. 
 
 LADY SOUTHWOLD: It is very touching. I wish 
 we had known him. 
 
 (BERTRAM folds the letter up and looks across 
 at CICELY.) 
 
 LORD SOUTHWOLD: Magdalen College won't 
 trouble itself much about the horses and dogs. 
 
 LADY SOUTHWOLD: Can't you withdraw your 
 refusal? (BERTRAM is silent.) 
 
 LORD SOUTHWOLD: Would they let you? 
 
 BERTRAM : It is a cruel position to be placed 
 in. However I may decide, I must feel that I 
 leave some duty undone. 
 
 CICELY SEYMOUR : I understand what Mr. Ber- 
 tram feels. To accept this fortune will be pain- 
 ful, and even odious to him with his views. But 
 to let it go to Oxford, must be, after receiving 
 this letter, equally distressing to him because he 
 will feel that he has failed to carry out a dead 
 man's trust. Is not that your meaning, Mr. 
 Bertram ? 
 
 BERTRAM (with greatful looks) : It is. 
 
 LORD SOUTHWOLD : You split straws. The busi- 
 106
 
 "A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 ness of the world would never get done if men 
 hemmed and hawed and tortured themselves as 
 you do. Can you retract your refusal? 
 
 BERTRAM : I can. Folliott said that they should 
 take no action on it for twenty-four hours. Fan- 
 shawe suggested that, indeed, insisted on it. 
 
 LADY SOUTHWOLD: Fortunate for you that a 
 practical man was with you. I have a respect 
 for Mr. Fanshawe which I did not feel before. 
 Well, my dear Wilfred, you can't hesitate. 
 (BERTRAM does hesitate. He looks across at 
 CICELY.) 
 
 BERTRAM : Will you decide for me, Miss Sey- 
 mour? 
 
 CICELY SEYMOUR: It is a great responsibility. 
 (She stops and plays nervously with one of the 
 roses. Her color rises. At last she looks up and 
 says gravely:} I think under the circumstances 
 you should accept. To you wealth would be no 
 sinecure, but always a great trust to be employed 
 for the welfare of others for the furtherance of 
 great causes. Besides, it must be impossible to be 
 a practical socialist without the environment of 
 the Socialist State ; as impossible as for a fish to 
 swim in air, or a bird to fly in a vacuum. 
 (LADY SOUTHWOLD rises and puts her arms 
 around CICELY, kissing her on her sun-il- 
 lumined hair.} 
 
 LADY SOUTHWOLD: You will always give Wil- 
 fred good counsel, won't you, darling? 
 
 CICELY SEYMOUR: Mr. Bertram will want no 
 counsel but his own conscience. Oh, Lord South- 
 wold, conscience is so rare in our days, you should 
 107
 
 T A PREM'ATU RE S C I'A L I S T 
 
 not laugh at those who through all mockery try 
 to keep alive its sacred flame ! 
 
 LORD SOUTH WOLD (with pleasant malice} : 
 Since Wilfred has your esteem I laugh at him no 
 longer. I am convinced that he is the wisest and 
 will be the happiest of men. 
 
 SCENE III. It is midnight in London. 'A terrific 
 storm is in progress endangering lives and 
 destroying property. Thunder Tills the air 
 with crashing, ominous sounds while zigzag 
 lightning rends the heavens. HOPPER is out 
 on bail with some loose change in his pocket 
 which BERTRAM has given him. He has 
 sought shelter in an ill-lighted, wretched pub- 
 lic house ivhere some anarchists are seated 
 at a table drinking and plotting mischief. As 
 he saunters past them toward a bar, one of 
 them accosts him. 
 
 IST ANARCHIST: Hello, Hopper! How is it 
 you've got loose so devilish quick? Must have a 
 pull somewhere, eh? 
 
 2ND ANARCHIST: 'Av a seat! be sociable! (He 
 raps loudly on the table and when a waiter ap- 
 pears calls out:} Another bottle of gin ! 
 (HOPPER seats himself and glances cringingly at 
 the group of fierce-looking men. He has 
 not yet recovered from his last debauch; his 
 eyes are blood-shot, his lips cracked, his 
 throat parched.) 
 
 HOPPER : You're right. I hev a pull. It's Mr. 
 Bertram, the son of a peer. He always speaks 
 hup for a pore 'onest man. He hev bailed me out. 
 108
 
 "A PREMATURE S OCI'ALI ST 
 
 (The waiter brings the liquor and an extra glass 
 for HOPPER. // is quickly filled by the 
 fiercest looking of the group.) 
 3RD ANARCHIST: Let's drink a-standin' to the 
 man as has a pull ! 
 (All clink glasses, rise in a clattering, ungainly 
 
 fashion and toss off the liquor.) 
 2ND ANARCHIST : While we're up I propose we 
 drink to Ben, who's ready to blow the world up 
 to save pore 'umanity. 
 (The glasses are refilled, clinked and drunk. 
 
 They re-seat themselves.') 
 IST ANARCHIST (blowing a shrill whistle, 
 which causes the waiter to come to him with fly- 
 ing feet) : 'Tain't no good foolin' with a short 
 order of liquor when we're 'onored with the 
 company o' "Wet Whistle." Bring an armful 
 of 'em. 
 (Several bottles are quickly brought and placed 
 
 on the table. Glasses are refilled.) 
 IST ANARCHIST: So you've a pull on a bloated, 
 bloomin' aristocrat as bails you out when you gets 
 into trouble, eh. Hopper? 
 
 HOPPER (quite set up) : I hev, an' he's kep' 
 promisin' on me beer'd be free all 'round prom- 
 ised as 'ow I'd live in Windsor Castle and hev 
 ale and gin on tap all day long. Promised as 'ow, 
 if I'd put bombs in public buildings he'd give me 
 the run o' the cellars of Buckingham Palace. 
 (The Anarchists look significantly at one an- 
 other.) 
 
 IST ANARCHIST: You're just the man to do the 
 world a good turn and not have to pay for the job 
 109
 
 A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 with yer life. An' if you do it slick we'll see to it 
 that you hev ale and beer on tap all day long 
 though you live to be as old as Deuteronomy ! 
 
 2ND ANARCHIST (admiringly} : How wise you 
 be, Ben. I never heerd tell on him. 
 
 HOPPER : What am I to do to hev ale and gin 
 on tap all day long like Deut Deut what's that 
 fellow's name? 
 
 IST ANARCHIST: Deuteronomy! Great Caesar! 
 Nothin' ! A mere trifle ! We've done the 'ard 
 work ourselves. We've risked our lives makin' a 
 breach in the wall and hev put the explosives on 
 the right spot an' this 'orrible storm-devil has 
 come to protect us. 
 
 (For a brief time all four listen to the mad tem- 
 pest without, paling a trifle as a terrific 
 crash of thunder appears to threaten dire 
 destruction.) 
 
 HOPPER (anxiously) : What is it I'm to do to 
 be sure I'll hev ale and gin on tap all day long 
 like Deut Deut 
 
 IST ANARCHIST (impatiently) : Deuteronomy, 
 you fool ! Why nothin' but put a lighted match 
 to a fuse a-ready for it. We've hed a terrible 
 time gettin' the hole made in the wall without 
 ennybody seein' us. It's under that illigint new 
 palace as has been built with money got by makin' 
 slaves of them as works for its owner. 
 
 3RD ANARCHIST (becoming noisy) : Down, I 
 say, with the whole hellish brood as 'andles tainted 
 money money as is steeped in sighs, an' groans, 
 an' innocent 'uman blood ! 
 
 2ND ANARCHIST (clinking his glass with the 
 1 10
 
 A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 others) : We must drink to them 'igh senti- 
 ments ! 
 
 (Two French anarchists now slip in out of the 
 storm and are warmly greeted by their Eng- 
 lish brothers. They have but lately escaped 
 from France, where they have been dis- 
 tributing documents which would float into 
 the streets quietly and gently like snowflakes, 
 before the eyes of the police. The following, 
 translated into English, is a fair sample of 
 their import: "People, retake your liberty, 
 your initiative, and keep them. The Govern- 
 ment is the valet of Capital. Down ivith the 
 Government! Down with the king, Loubet! 
 To the seiver with the Senate! To the river 
 with the Chamber! To the dunghill with all 
 this ancient, social rottenness!" In the 
 midst of their drinking and hilarity one of the 
 French anarchists at the request of his Eng- 
 lish confreres, sings ^vith enkindling fury the 
 most vindictive version of the Carmagnole, 
 as follows : 
 
 I. 
 
 Dans la grande ville de Paris (bis) 
 II y a des bourgeois bien nourris, (bis) 
 II y a les misereux 
 Qui ont le ventre creux. 
 Ceux-la ont les dents longues, 
 Vive le son, vive le son 
 Ceux-la ont les dents longues, 
 uoA
 
 A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 ive le son 
 
 D' I' explosion. 
 
 REFRAIN (in which all join but HOPPER, who 
 prefers to play his favorite role of " Wet 
 Whistle."} 
 
 Dansons la Ravachole, 
 
 Vive le son, vive le son, 
 
 Dansons la Ravachole, 
 
 Vive le son 
 
 D' I' explosion. 
 
 Ah, ga ira, qa ira, qa ira, 
 
 TOMS les bourgeois gout 'ront d' la bombe, 
 
 Ah, fa ira, ga ira, <;a ira, 
 
 Tons les bourgeois on les saut 'ra, 
 
 On les saut 'ra. 
 
 II. 
 
 II y a les magistrats vendus ( bis} 
 II y a les financiers ventrus, (bis) 
 II y a les argosins; 
 Mais pour tons ces coquins 
 II y a d' la dynamite, 
 Vive le son 
 D' I' explosion! 
 Dansons, etc. 
 
 Dansons la Ravachole, 
 Vive le son, vive le son, 
 Dansons la Ravachole, 
 Vive le son 
 D' I' explosion. 
 
 lloB
 
 A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 Ah, qa ira, qa ira, qa ira, 
 
 Tons les bourgeois gout 'ront d' la bombe, 
 
 Ah, qa ira, qa ira, qa ira, 
 
 Tons les bourgeois on les saut 'ra, 
 
 On les saut 'ra. 
 
 III. 
 
 II y L les senateurs gateux, (bis) 
 II y a les deputes vereux, (bis) 
 II y a les generaux, 
 Assassins et bourreaux, 
 Bouchers en uniforme, 
 Vive le son, vive le son, 
 Bouchers en uniforme, 
 Vive le son 
 D' I' explosion. 
 Dansons, etc. 
 
 Dansons la Ravachole, 
 
 Vive le son, vive le son, 
 
 Dansons la Ravachole, 
 
 Vive le son 
 
 D' I' explosion. 
 
 Ah, qa ira, qa ira, qa ira, 
 
 Tous les bourgeois gout 'ront d' la bombe, 
 
 Ah, qa ira, qa ira, qa ira, 
 
 Tous les bourgeois on les saut 'ra, 
 
 On les saut 'ra. 
 
 IV. 
 
 II y a les hotels des richards (bis) 
 Tandis que les pauvres dechards (bis) 
 jipC
 
 A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 A demi-morts de froid 
 
 Et souffrant daiu leurs doigts. 
 
 Refilent la comete, 
 
 Vive le son, vive le son 
 
 Refilent la comete, 
 
 Vive le son 
 
 D' I' explosion. 
 
 Dansons. etc. 
 
 l 
 
 Dansons la Ravachole, 
 
 Vive le son, vive le son, 
 
 Dansons la Ravachole, 
 
 Vive le son 
 
 D' V explosion. 
 
 Ah, qa ira, qa ira, qa ira, 
 
 Tons les bourgeois gout 'ront d' la bombe, 
 
 Ah, qa ira, qa ira, qa ira, 
 
 Tons les bourgeois on les saut 'ra, 
 
 On les saut 'ra. 
 
 V. 
 
 Ah, nom de dieu, faut en ~nir! (bis} 
 Asses longtemps geindre et souffrir! (bis) 
 Pas de guerre d moitie! 
 Plus de lache pitie! 
 Mort d la bourgeoisie, 
 Vive le son, vive le son, ' 
 Mort a la bourgeoisie, 
 Vive le son 
 D' I' explosion! 
 Dansons, etc. 
 
 ANARCHIST (clinking his glass with the 
 iloD
 
 'A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 others and rising} : We must drink a-standin' to 
 
 them 'igh sentiments ! 
 
 (All rise clatteringly and drink, smacking their 
 
 lips and wiping their hairy months ivith their 
 
 rough hands or on the sleeves of their ragged 
 
 coats. ) 
 
 IST ANARCHIST: The storm-devil bids us get 
 
 busy, like itself. (Blows a whistle and having 
 
 secured the attention of the boss calls out:} Hi, 
 
 there ! Bring us our score ! We must be off ! 
 
 (The bill is promptly made out and as promptly 
 paid, much to the admiration of HOPPER. 
 He secretly stuffs two partly emptied bottles 
 in his pockets as he follows the others out 
 into the howling tempest. They cross the 
 street and soon disappear in the Stygian 
 darkness to be seen now and then as the 
 lurid lightning reveals their forms for an 
 instant. ) 
 
 SCENE IV. BERTRAM has returned to his rooms. 
 They have become shockingly disordered 
 since he dismissed his valet. In one room 
 the drawers of the cabinet are still on the 
 floor; the chairs which fell are still upside 
 down; the broken whip lies in the corner; he 
 is extremely thirsty and he has not an idea 
 where the mineral waters or the syphon of 
 seltzer, or even the glasses, are kept. "What 
 miserable creatures we are!" he reflects. "Of 
 course it all comes from the utterly false sys- 
 tem of one person leaning on others." Yet he 
 reluctantly realises that the false system has 
 ill
 
 r A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 its merits as far as individual comfort goes. 
 At this moment there is a sharp ring at the 
 door bell and a moment later still a male 
 voice cries'. 
 
 SIR HENRY STANHOPE: Can I come in, Ber- 
 tram? 
 
 BERTRAM (in extreme surprise} : You, Stan- 
 hope? 
 
 SIR HENRY STANHOPE: Myself! 
 (He is Sir Henry Stanhope, the Home Secretary 
 of the actual Government. Bertram was his 
 fag at Eton, and a good deal of cordial feel- 
 ing has always existed between them, de- 
 spite the vast and irreconcilable difference 
 of their social and political opinions. Sir 
 Henry regards him as a maniac, but an in- 
 teresting and lovable one. Bertram regards 
 him in return as a hopeless Philistine, but a 
 Philistine who means well and has good 
 points, and who is, in the exercise of his hor- 
 rible office, admirably conscientious. His 
 conscientiousness has not, however, pre- 
 vented him from allowing to go to the gal- 
 lows a victim of prejudice ivho killed his 
 wife because he zvas tired of seeing her red 
 hair a misguided aesthete for whose release 
 Bertram pleaded in vain. Since the time of 
 this unfortunate affair there has been some 
 chilliness in the relations of Stanhope and 
 himself. The Home Secretary looks at 
 the disorder of the chamber with some sur- 
 prise and seats himself unbidden.} 
 
 SIR HENRY STANHOPE : My dear Bertram, old 
 
 112
 
 'A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 acquaintance should not be forgot. Its memories 
 bring me here to-day. 
 
 BERTRAM (coldly and with a glance of in- 
 quiry} : Thanks. 
 
 SIR HENRY STANHOPE (coughs) : You have a 
 good many proteges among the lower classes, I 
 think. 
 
 BERTRAM (stoutly) : I deny there is a lower 
 class. 
 
 SIR HENRY STANHOPE: I know you do. But 
 let us for the moment use the language of a be- 
 nighted and unkind world. Your peculiar views 
 have led you into forming these associations 
 which cannot be agreeable to your taste. But 
 did it not occur to you that they might be com- 
 promising as well as as rather unrefined? 
 
 BERTRAM (with hostility in his tone) : Pray, 
 explain yourself. 
 
 SIR HENRY STANHOPE (feeling nettled at the 
 manner in which his amiably intended visit is 
 received) : Certainly. In two words, you have 
 a friend by the name of Hopper? 
 
 BERTRAM (growing red in the face) : Frederick 
 Hopper, yes. A very unfortunate person, origi- 
 nally a victim of the London police. 
 
 SIR HENRY STANHOPE: Possibly. The police 
 are always accused of being oppressors or accom- 
 plices. This person is known to them as "Wet 
 Whistle," because he has exaggerated views of 
 the medicinal value of stimulants. This victim 
 came again in collision with the brute force of 
 the police early this morning. 
 
 "3
 
 A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 (BERTRAM is silent, fearing some new and worse 
 trouble in connection Tvith HOPPER.) 
 
 SIR HENRY STANHOPE (-with culpable heart- 
 lessness} : Mr. Frederick Hopper does not in- 
 terest me in the least, but it appears you used 
 very culpable language to the constables in the 
 Park ; and when the man was brought before the 
 Westminster police court, he gave your name as 
 that of the person who had indoctrinated him 
 with subversive views, and it seems that you ad- 
 mitted having done so to the constables in Hyde 
 Park, and stated that you deserved arrest more 
 than this man Hopper. The police, of course, 
 reported all that you said at headquarters ; and 
 you are likely to be very seriously compromised 
 in this matter. It is dangerous to play at anarch- 
 ism in these days 
 
 BERTRAM : If anyone is to blame it is certainly 
 I rather than Hopper; but there is no question 
 of anarchism. 
 
 SIR HENRY STANHOPE: I should, myself, con- 
 sider you the more to blame of the two. A magis- 
 trate would take the same view. 
 
 (BERTRAM does not reply.} 
 
 SIR HENRY STANHOPE: Hopper, in a low 
 drinking place, last night, boasted that you had 
 promised him the run of the cellars of Bucking- 
 ham Palace provided he would place explosives 
 in public buildings or throw a hand grenade into 
 the royal carriage as it is being driven from Pad- 
 dington Station next Monday. 
 
 BERTRAM (smiling faintly) : Are you sure 
 
 114
 
 'A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 these vivid romances are not composed in Scot- 
 land Yard? 
 
 SIR HENRY STANHOPE (thoroughly annoyed) : 
 No, sir! Scotland Yard has too many tragedies 
 to deal with to have time or patience to compose 
 mock melodramas. The man Hopper has said 
 this and much more, inculpating you as an an- 
 archist. However, all might have passed off 
 as a drunken ranter's ravings, but, unfortunately, 
 there were your published opinions in that or- 
 gan of yours, the Age to Come. The magis- 
 trate, Mr. Adeane, being acquainted with these, 
 is justly of the opinion that if you incite per- 
 sons to violent and nefarious acts your social 
 rank and intellectual culture ought not to save 
 you from punishment. 
 
 BERTRAM : Certainly they ought not. 
 
 SIR HENRY STANHOPE: Then you do admit 
 holding such opinions ? 
 
 BERTRAM (decidedly): No! I am altogether 
 opposed to force force of any kind. 
 
 SIR HENRY STANHOPE: Then your protege 
 lied? 
 
 BERTRAM : If he used such expressions, yes. 
 
 SIR HENRY STANHOPE: If! Do you suppose a 
 magistrate would send a deposition which was 
 never made to the Home Office? I repeat that 
 what gave weight to this wretched agitator's ac- 
 cusations of you were the very very advanced 
 opinions acknowledged and disseminated by you 
 in the Age to Come. Re-read for yourself such 
 passages as these: (STANHOPE takes out his 
 notebook and reads) : "The rich man, however 
 "5
 
 r A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 estimable in his private character, is in position 
 a thief and in conscience a scoundrel." Or this : 
 "Poor-rates and workhouses are the insult which 
 is added to injury by the rich in their relations 
 with the poor." Or this : "Nitric acid destroys 
 more readily but not more cruelly than unjust 
 taxation." 
 
 BERTRAM : Do you consider these statements 
 unjustified by the state of society? 
 
 SIR HENRY STANHOPE: I consider them most 
 dangerous when put before an illiterate person. 
 
 BERTRAM : Pray, then, let me go and pick oak- 
 um with the unfortunate man whom I have con- 
 taminated for I easily guess that he is in some 
 new trouble. 
 
 (STANHOPE with difficulty keeps down his rising 
 anger. ) 
 
 SIR HENRY STANHOPE: My dear Bertram, I re- 
 gret that you appreciate my intentions so lit- 
 tle. I received the fresh communication from 
 Mr. Adeane but a short time before coming 
 here. If I had done as I ought I should per- 
 haps have let things take their own course. But 
 I know you ; and I know that it is an exaggerated 
 altruism that runs away with you into dangerous 
 places; and that you are the last man to incul- 
 cate or to approve of crime. 
 
 BERTRAM : But what is crime ? Have not regi- 
 cides many apologists ? Is Carlyle alone in admir- 
 ing Cromwell? As boys are we not adorers of 
 Harmodius and Aristogiton? Have not the most 
 bloody revolutions come trippingly on the heels 
 of inordinate and costly display on the part of 
 116
 
 r A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 those who have unduly heaped up riches for 
 selfish ends and whose imitators we adore to- 
 day? When did the ominous handwriting ap- 
 pear on the wall ? What caused the fall of Rome? 
 What brought to pass "The Reign of Terror"? 
 What causes every serious, thoughtful person to 
 quake with fear to-day when he observes history 
 repeating itself? 
 
 SIR HENRY STANHOPE (waving aside these 
 historical precedents and forebodings) : The mag- 
 istrate took a lenient view of Hopper this morn- 
 ing and thought his being found where he was ex- 
 cused by drink (we are so immorally lenient to 
 drink in this country!) and so I was enabled by 
 using unacknowledged influence (a thing I 
 loathe to do) to get the affair hushed up. But 
 I cannot prevent your being marked by the po- 
 lice and considered a dangerous person. You 
 will probably be shadowed for some time to come 
 and if anything of this kind occurs again it will be 
 out of my power to save you from exceedingly 
 disagreeable consequences. 
 
 BERTRAM : But what new trouble has Hopper 
 got into? I fail to understand. 
 
 SIR HENRY STANHOPE : Good Lord ! Have I not 
 told you? The truth is I have been so con- 
 cerned about you that my brains are muddled. 
 Why, he was found beastly drunk, early this 
 morning, near a lot of dynamite in a cellar under- 
 neath that new, magnificent palace not yet quite 
 finished. He said the storm drove him there 
 for protection and that he knew nothing of 
 what was stored there. Fortunately the magis- 
 117
 
 A PREMATURE SOCIALIST 
 
 trate believed him to be speaking the truth for 
 once in his life. 
 
 BERTRAM (with sudden warmth and feeling) : 
 I am deeply grateful to you, Stanhope, for your 
 sympathy and help. But what has become of poor 
 Hopper, who seems determined to make a beast 
 of himself? 
 
 SIR HENRY STANHOPE: Oh! we nearly scared 
 the life out of the still tipsy creature. Ordered 
 him to leave the country without another drink. 
 He is headed for America, that wonderful land, 
 where anarchism has become a fine art protected 
 by law. 
 
 (Both gentlemen laugh heartily, shaking one an- 
 other by the hand warmly, as they do so.) 
 j 
 
 CURTAIN. 
 THE END.
 
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 subject Psycho-physical culture of whose methods the 
 author has made successful application. The book is full 
 of common-sense suggestions and is admirably adapted 
 to the needs of humanity in general. 
 
 The chapter-captions will give an excellent idea of the 
 comprehensive and practical character of the work:. 
 
 Various Therapeutic Agents.. 
 
 Influence of Mind. 
 
 Extravagant Emotions. 
 
 Insomnia. 
 
 Relaxation. 
 
 Harmony the Law of Nature?. 
 
 Order 
 
 All of the books named in this magazine to be had 
 "from any newsdealer, or
 
 BOOKS YOU NVST HEAD 
 SOONER. OH LATER. 
 
 Llewellyn 
 
 A NOVEL 
 
 BY HADLEY S. KIMBERLING. 
 
 Cloth. $1.50. 
 5 Illustrations by S. Klarr. 
 
 Here is a story whose artistic realism will appeal to 
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 Satan of the Modern World 
 
 BY E. G. DOYEN. 
 
 izmo, cloth, handsomely produced. 
 
 $1.50. 
 
 The title of this book will arouse curiosity, and its 
 brilliant contents will fully reward the wide public which 
 it will reach. 
 
 A Missburian's Honor 
 
 BY W. W. ARNOLD. 
 
 Goth, I2mo. $1.00. 
 
 3 Illustrations.
 
 YOU MUST READ 1 
 SOONER. OR. LATER. 
 
 J\[o Surrender. 
 
 BY JOHN N. SWIFT AND WILLIAM S. BIRGE, M.D. 
 
 Cloth, izmo. Frontispiece. Price, $1.50 
 
 From the moment this story opens in the old 
 whaling station of New Bedford, until the climax 
 of climaxes is reached in the high seas some- 
 where off the coast of Chile, excitement and in- 
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 him. 
 
 Imagine, if you can, the consternation of the 
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 interest ever whetted. 
 
 Broadway Publishing Company, 
 
 835 Broadway, New York,
 
 BOOKS YOU MUST READ 
 SOONER. OR LATER 
 
 g^jjjT' New Book by the Author of 
 
 A Girl and the Devil ! 
 
 We beg to announce for autumn a new novel from 
 the pen of JEANNETTE LLEWELLYN EDWARDS, entitled 
 
 LOVE IN THE TROPICS 
 
 The scene of Miss Edwards' new work is laid in 
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 LOVE IN THE TROPICS" 
 
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 The New Womanhood 
 
 By WlNNIFRED H. COOLEY. 
 $1.25. 
 
 No more original, striking and brilliant treatise on 
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 heart of womankind
 
 BOOKS YOV NVST READ 
 SOONER OR LATER 
 
 GREY DAWN REFLECTIONS 
 
 BY VIRGINIA BEALE LECKIE 
 
 This clever Washington girl has come close to 
 writing the wittiest and brightest book of epigrams 
 that has appeared in this epigram-mad age. A few 
 samples : 
 
 A friend lies for an enemy about and a wife with you. 
 
 If your grandfather made it in pigs you have a perfect 
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 A married woman's troubled look at 3 A. M. is not so much 
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 The majority of women lay the first misstep to Cupid ; some 
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 and the opportunity are often to blame. 
 
 Printed on grey antique paper. Cover in grey, 
 red, green and gold. Marginal decorations in color. 
 Frontis medallion portrait of author in red, sepia and 
 gold. Post-paid, $1.00. 
 
 I6T What daintier holiday gift for your HIM or 
 HER? 
 
 BROADWAY PUBLISHING CO. 
 835 BROADWAY, NEW YORK
 
 SOME MEN PAY 
 
 Ten thousand dollars for an expert to manage their adver- 
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 CHARLES J. ZINGG, 
 
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 JO SPRUCE ST., NEW YORK. 
 
 BETWEEN THE LINES 
 
 VIOLA T. MAXIMA 
 
 Cloth, 12mo. Dainty in style, thrilling In contents . $1 00 
 This is a story on the always interesting subject of an unfort- 
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 Broadway Publishing Company, 
 
 835 Broadway, New York.
 
 ADIRONDACK 
 MURRAY 
 
 A Biographical Appreciation 
 
 By HARRY V. RADFORD 
 
 Editor of "Woods and "Waters 
 
 W. H. H. MURRAY (b. 1840, d. 19041 equally celebrated 
 as preacher, author, lecturer, sportsman and traveler has be- 
 come an immortal figure in American history and letters, taking 
 rank, as a writer, with Cooper and Thoreau. Mr. Radford 
 himself an author and sportsman of national repute, and ac- 
 knowledged the greatest living authority upon Adirondack 
 sport and literature has told the wonderful story of " Adiron- 
 dack " Murray from the vantage-point of personal acquaintance, 
 and with a characteristic grace and charm of style that insures 
 for his book permanent popularity. 
 
 HENRY VAN DYKE 
 
 in a personal letter written to the author from " Avalon," 
 Princeton, N. J., says of Mr. Radford's book : 
 
 " Your writing takes me back in imagination to that beautiful country of 
 mountains, and rivers, and lakes, where so many of the happiest months of 
 my early life were spent, and where I learned to cast the fly and shoot a 
 rifle. It Is pleasant to feel the sincere and cordial enthusiasm with which 
 you wriie of the fine trails of A'ir. Murray's character, and the bi g out-of- 
 door siJe of his life in which the best of his nature found expression. 
 I congratulate you on the success with which you have performed your 
 task of gratitude and friendship, and hope that your book will find its 
 way into the hands of thousands of those who love the woods and the 
 waters." 
 
 10 FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Flexible wood- green leather, with elaborate 
 emblematic decoration in gold, and full gilt 
 edges. By mail $1.60 
 
 Blue vellum cloth. By mail 60 
 
 BROADWAY PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 
 535 BROADWAY, NEW YORK
 
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