CONFUCIUS.  Seventy-eight into two hundred and eighty-three goes more than three and a half times.  Your department owes the Archbishop two and a half educations and three and a half retiring pensions.

BARNABAS.  Stuff!  How can that be?

CONFUCIUS.  At what age do your people begin to work for the community?

BURGE-LUBIN.  Three.  They do certain things every day when they are three.  Just to break them in, you know.  But they become self-supporting, or nearly so, at thirteen.

CONFUCIUS.  And at what age do they retire?

BARNABAS.  Forty-three.

CONFUCIUS.  That is, they do thirty years’ work; and they receive maintenance and education, without working, for thirteen years of childhood and thirty-five years of superannuation, forty-eight years in all, for each thirty years’ work.  The Archbishop has given you 260 years’ work, and has received only one education and no superannuation.  You therefore owe him over 300 years of leisure and nearly eight educations.  You are thus heavily in his debt.  In other words, he has effected an enormous national economy by living so long; and you, by living only seventy-eight years, are profiting at his expense.  He is the benefactor:  you are the thief. [Half rising] May I now withdraw and return to my serious business, as my own span is comparatively short?

BURGE-LUBIN.  Dont be in a hurry, old chap. [Confucius sits down again].  This hypothecary, or whatever you call it, is put up seriously.  I don’t believe it; but if the Archbishop and the Accountant General are going to insist that it’s true, we shall have either to lock them up or to see the thing through.

BARNABAS.  It’s no use trying these Chinese subtleties on me.  I’m a plain man; and though I don’t understand metaphysics, and don’t believe in them, I understand figures; and if the Archbishop is only entitled to seventy-eight years, and he takes 283, I say he takes more than he is entitled to.  Get over that if you can.

THE ARCHBISHOP.  I have not taken 283 years:  I have taken 23 and given 260.

CONFUCIUS.  Do your accounts shew a deficiency or a surplus?

BARNABAS.  A surplus.  Thats what I cant make out.  Thats the artfulness of these people.

BURGE-LUBIN.  That settles it.  Whats the use of arguing?  The Chink says you are wrong; and theres an end of it.

BARNABAS.  I say nothing against the Chink’s arguments.  But what about my facts?

CONFUCIUS.  If your facts include a case of a man living 283 years, I advise you to take a few weeks at the seaside.

BARNABAS.  Let there be an end of this hinting that I am out of my mind.  Come and look at the cinema record.  I tell you this man is Archbishop Haslam, Archbishop Stickit, President Dickenson, General Bullyboy and himself into the bargain; all five of them.

THE ARCHBISHOP.  I do not deny it.  I never have denied it.  Nobody has ever asked me.