{Thank you.}
THE WIFE}    [together] {I should like to,} [They go into]
THE DAUGHTER}             {very much.}        [the temple]

THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [in dignified rebuke of Zozim’s levity] Taken in this spirit, sir, the show, as you call it, becomes almost an insult to our common sense.

ZOZIM.  Quite, I should say.  You need not keep it up with me.

THE ENVOY [suddenly making himself very agreeable] Just so:  just so.  We can wait as long as you please.  And now, if I may be allowed to seize the opportunity of a few minutes’ friendly chat—?

ZOZIM.  By all means, if only you will talk about things I can understand.

THE ENVOY.  Well, about this colonizing plan of yours.  My father-in-law here has been telling me something about it; and he has just now let out that you want not only to colonize us, but to—­to—­to—­well, shall we say to supersede us?  Now why supersede us?  Why not live and let live?  Theres not a scrap of ill-feeling on our side.  We should welcome a colony of immortals—­we may almost call you that—­in the British Middle East.  No doubt the Turanian Empire, with its Mahometan traditions, overshadows us now.  We have had to bring the Emperor with us on this expedition, though of course you know as well as I do that he has imposed himself on my party just to spy on me.  I dont deny that he has the whip hand of us to some extent, because if it came to a war none of our generals could stand up against him.  I give him best at that game:  he is the finest soldier in the world.  Besides, he is an emperor and an autocrat; and I am only an elected representative of the British democracy.  Not that our British democrats wont fight:  they will fight the heads off all the Turanians that ever walked; but then it takes so long to work them up to it, while he has only to say the word and march.  But you people would never get on with him.  Believe me, you would not be as comfortable in Turania as you would be with us.  We understand you.  We like you.  We are easy-going people; and we are rich people.  That will appeal to you.  Turania is a poor place when all is said.  Five-eighths of it is desert.  They dont irrigate as we do.  Besides—­now I am sure this will appeal to you and to all right-minded men—­we are Christians.

ZOZIM.  The old uns prefer Mahometans.

THE ENVOY [shocked] What!

ZOZIM [distinctly] They prefer Mahometans.  Whats wrong with that?

THE ENVOY.  Well, of all the disgraceful—­

THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [diplomatically interrupting his scandalized son-in-law] There can be no doubt, I am afraid, that by clinging too long to the obsolete features of the old pseudo-Christian Churches we allowed the Mahometans to get ahead of us at a very critical period of the development of the Eastern world.  When the Mahometan Reformation took place, it left its followers with the enormous advantage of having the only established religion in the world in whose articles of faith any intelligent and educated person could believe.