The Archbishop enters.  He has a white band round his throat, set in a black stock.  He wears a sort of kilt of black ribbons, and soft black boots that button high up on his calves.  His costume does not differ otherwise from that of the President and the Accountant General; but its color scheme is black and white.  He is older than the Reverend Bill Haslam was when he wooed Miss Savvy Barnabas; but he is recognizably the same man.  He does not look a day over fifty, and is very well preserved even at that; but his boyishness of manner is quite gone:  he now has complete authority and self-possession:  in fact the President is a little afraid of him; and it seems quite natural and inevitable that he should speak fast.

THE ARCHBISHOP.  Good day, Mr President.

BURGE-LUBIN.  Good day, Mr Archbishop.  Be seated.

THE ARCHBISHOP [sitting down between them] Good day, Mr Accountant
General.

BARNABAS [malevolently] Good day to you.  I have a question to put to you, if you don’t mind.

THE ARCHBISHOP [looking curiously at him, jarred by his uncivil tone]
Certainly.  What is it?

BARNABAS.  What is your definition of a thief?

THE ARCHBISHOP.  Rather an old-fashioned word, is it not?

BARNABAS.  It survives officially in my department.

THE ARCHBISHOP.  Our departments are full of survivals.  Look at my tie! my apron! my boots!  They are all mere survivals; yet it seems that without them I cannot be a proper Archbishop.

BARNABAS.  Indeed!  Well, in my department the word thief survives, because in the community the thing thief survives.  And a very despicable and dishonorable thing he is, too.

THE ARCHBISHOP [coolly] I daresay.

BARNABAS.  In my department, sir, a thief is a person who lives longer than the statutory expectation of life entitles him to, and goes on drawing public money when, if he were an honest man, he would be dead.

THE ARCHBISHOP.  Then let me say, sir, that your department does not understand its own business.  If you have miscalculated the duration of human life, that is not the fault of the persons whose longevity you have miscalculated.  And if they continue to work and produce, they pay their way, even if they live two or three centuries.

BARNABAS.  I know nothing about their working and producing.  That is not the business of my department.  I am concerned with their expectation of life; and I say that no man has any right to go on living and drawing money when he ought to be dead.

THE ARCHBISHOP.  You do not comprehend the relation between income and production.

BARNABAS.  I understand my own department.

THE ARCHBISHOP.  That is not enough.  Your department is part of a synthesis which embraces all the departments.

BURGE-LUBIN.  Synthesis!  This is an intellectual difficulty.  This is a job for Confucius.  I heard him use that very word the other day; and I wondered what the devil he meant. [Switching on] Hallo!  Put me through to the Chief Secretary.