BURGE-LUBIN.  Between ourselves, Confucius, so have I.

CONFUCIUS.  It is this that convinced me.  It was this in the woman’s face that convinced you.  Their new departure in the history of the race is no fraud.  It does not even surprise me.

BURGE-LUBIN.  Oh, come!  Not surprise you!  It’s your pose never to be surprised at anything; but if you are not surprised at this you are not human.

CONFUCIUS.  I am staggered, just as a man may be staggered by an explosion for which he has himself laid the charge and lighted the fuse.  But I am not surprised, because, as a philosopher and a student of evolutionary biology, I have come to regard some such development as this as inevitable.  If I had not thus prepared myself to be credulous, no mere evidence of films and well-told tales would have persuaded me to believe.  As it is, I do believe.

BURGE-LUBIN.  Well, that being settled, what the devil is to happen next?  Whats the next move for us?

CONFUCIUS.  We do not make the next move.  The next move will be made by the Archbishop and the woman.

BURGE-LUBIN.  Their marriage?

CONFUCIUS.  More than that.  They have made the momentous discovery that they are not alone in the world.

BURGE-LUBIN.  You think there are others?

CONFUCIUS.  There must be many others.  Each of them believes that he or she is the only one to whom the miracle has happened.  But the Archbishop knows better now.  He will advertise in terms which only the longlived people will understand.  He will bring them together and organize them.  They will hasten from all parts of the earth.  They will become a great Power.

BURGE-LUBIN [a little alarmed] I say, will they?  I suppose they will.  I wonder is Barnabas right after all?  Ought we to allow it?

CONFUCIUS.  Nothing that we can do will stop it.  We cannot in our souls really want to stop it:  the vital force that has produced this change would paralyse our opposition to it, if we were mad enough to oppose.  But we will not oppose.  You and I may be of the elect, too.

BURGE-LUBIN.  Yes:  thats what gets us every time.  What the deuce ought we to do?  Something must be done about it, you know.

CONFUCIUS.  Let us sit still, and meditate in silence on the vistas before us.

BURGE-LUBIN.  By George, I believe youre right.  Let us.

They sit meditating, the Chinaman naturally, the President with visible effort and intensity.  He is positively glaring into the future when the voice of the Negress is heard.

THE NEGRESS.  Mr President.

BURGE-LUBIN [joyfully] Yes. [Taking up a peg] Are you at home?

THE NEGRESS.  No.  Omega, zero, x squared.

The President rapidly puts the peg in the switchboard; works the dial; and presses the button.  The screen becomes transparent; and the Negress, brilliantly dressed, appears on what looks like the bridge of a steam yacht in glorious sea weather.  The installation with which she is communicating is beside the binnacle.