JOHN

I say, why don’t you use it yourself?

ALI

I?  I am afraid of the past.  But you Engleesh, and the great firm of Briggs, Cater, and Beal; you are afraid of nothing.

JOHN

Ha, ha.  Well—­I wouldn’t go quite as far as that, but—­well, give me the crystal.

MARY

Don’t take it, John!  Don’t take it.

JOHN

Why, Mary?  It won’t hurt me.

MARY

If it can do all that—­if it can do all that . . .

JOHN

Well?

MARY

Why, you might never have met me.

JOHN

Never have met you?  I never thought of that.

MARY

Leave the past alone, John.

JOHN

All right, Mary.  I needn’t use it.  But I want to hear about it, it’s so odd, it’s so what-you-might-call queer; I don’t think I ever----- [To Ali.] You mean if I work hard for ten years, which will only be all to-morrow, I may be Governor of the Bank of England to-morrow night.

ALI

Even so.

MARY

O, don’t do it, John.

JOHN

But you said—­I’ll be back here before midnight to-morrow.

ALI

It is so.

JOHN

But the Governor of the Bank of England would live in the City, and he’d have a much bigger house anyway.  He wouldn’t live in Lewisham.

ALI

The crystal will bring you to this house when the hour is accomplished, even tomorrow night.  If you be the great banker you will perhaps come to chastise one of your slaves who will dwell in this house.  If you be head of Briggs and Cater you will come to give an edict to one of your firm.  Perchance this street will be yours and you will come to show your power unto it.  But you will come.

JOHN

And if the house is not mine?

MARY

John!  John!  Don’t.

ALI

Still you will come.