MRS LUTESTRING.  What nonsense, Mr Accountant General!  Good afternoon, Mr President.  Good afternoon, Mr Chief Secretary. [They rise and acknowledge her salutation with bows.  She walks straight at the Accountant General, who instinctively shrinks out of her way as she leaves the room].

THE ARCHBISHOP.  I am surprised at you, Mr Barnabas.  Your tone was like an echo from the Dark Ages. [He follows the Domestic Minister].

Confucius, shaking his head and clucking with his tongue in deprecation of this painful episode, moves to the chair just vacated by the Archbishop and stands behind it with folded palms, looking at the President.  The Accountant General shakes his fist after the departed visitors, and bursts into savage abuse of them.

BARNABAS.  Thieves!  Cursed thieves!  Vampires!  What are you going to do, Burge?

BURGE-LUBIN.  Do?

BARNABAS.  Yes, do.  There must be dozens of these people in existence.  Are you going to let them do what the two who have just left us mean to do, and crowd us off the face of the earth?

BURGE-LUBIN [sitting down] Oh, come, Barnabas!  What harm are they doing?  Arnt you interested in them?  Dont you like them?

BARNABAS.  Like them!  I hate them.  They are monsters, unnatural monsters.  They are poison to me.

BURGE-LUBIN.  What possible objection can there be to their living as long as they can?  It does not shorten our lives, does it?

BARNABAS.  If I have to die when I am seventy-eight, I don’t see why another man should be privileged to live to be two hundred and seventy-eight.  It does shorten my life, relatively.  It makes us ridiculous.  If they grew to be twelve feet high they would make us all dwarfs.  They talked to us as if we were children.  There is no love lost between us:  their hatred of us came out soon enough.  You heard what the woman said, and how the Archbishop backed her up?

BURGE-LUBIN.  But what can we do to them?

BARNABAS.  Kill them.

BURGE-LUBIN.  Nonsense!

BARNABAS.  Lock them up.  Sterilize them somehow, anyhow.

BURGE-LUBIN.  But what reason could we give?

BARNABAS.  What reason can you give for killing a snake?  Nature tells you to do it.

BURGE-LUBIN.  My dear Barnabas, you are out of your mind.

BARNABAS.  Havnt you said that once too often already this morning?

BURGE-LUBIN.  I don’t believe you will carry a single soul with you.

BARNABAS.  I understand.  I know you.  You think you are one of them.

CONFUCIUS.  Mr Accountant General:  you may be one of them.

BARNABAS.  How dare you accuse me of such a thing?  I am an honest man, not a monster.  I won my place in public life by demonstrating that the true expectation of human life is seventy-eight point six.  And I will resist any attempt to alter or upset it to the last drop of my blood if need be.