ROBERT. Then you’d better look slippy!
BISHOP. I beg your pardon? . . .
ROBERT [with a flap at the trumpet]. Go on: you ’eard.
BISHOP. Of course, the financial undertaking is considerable: it’s not like an investment, where there is some reasonable hope of a return: it’s merely a matter of charity! The money’s—gone, so to speak.
ROBERT. Yus, I’ve noticed that about money, myself.
BISHOP. At the same time, I should like my name to be associated with your brother’s, in so worthy an enterprise . . .
ROBERT [mildly sarcastic]. You don’t say!
BISHOP. And then again, I trust—I say I trust—I am not impervious to the more sacred obligations involved; but . . .
[He gropes blindly for bread.]
ROBERT. I allus notice that sort of ’igh talk ends with a “but” . . .
BISHOP. Naturally, I should like to learn a little, beforehand, of your brother’s views. From what I gather, they are not altogether likely to coincide with my own. Of course, he is an idealist, a dreamer. Now, under these circumstances, perhaps . . .
Eh, what— Oh! Bless my soul!
[MANSON has been offering him bread for some time. He has just tumbled to the fact of his presence. He rises.]
My—my Brother from Benares, I presume?
ROBERT. What, my pal, ’is brother! Oh, Je’oshaphat!
BISHOP. Ten thousand pardons! Really,
my eyesight is deplorable!
Delighted to meet you! . . .
I was just observing to our charming host that—er— Humph! . . .
Bless me! Now what was I . . .
MANSON. Something about your sacred obligations, I believe.
BISHOP. May I trouble you again?
[MANSON gravely fixes the ear-trumpet in his ear.]
ROBERT. That’s right: stick the damned thing in ’is ear-’ole, comride!
MANSON [through the trumpet]. Your sacred obligations.
BISHOP. Precisely, precisely! Er— Shall we sit?
[They do so. The BISHOP looks to MANSON to begin. MANSON, failing him, the spirit begins to work within himself.]
Well—er—–speaking of that, of course, my dearly-beloved brother, I feel very seriously on the matter, very seriously—as I am sure you do. The restoration of a church is a tremendous, an overwhelming responsibility. To begin with, it—it costs quite a lot. Doesn’t it?
MANSON. It does: quite a lot.
BISHOP. Hm, yes—yes! . . . You mentioned Sacred obligations just now, and I think that on the whole I am inclined to agree with you. It is an admirable way of putting it. We must awaken people to a sense of their sacred obligations. This is a work in which everybody can do something: the rich man can give of the abundance with which it has pleased