CONFUCIUS. No. He would be justified in calling him a liar. THE ARCHBISHOP. I think not, Mr Chief Secretary. What do you suppose my age is? CONFUCIUS. Fifty. BURGE-LUBIN. You don't look it. Forty-five; and young for your age. THE ARCHBISHOP. My age is two hundred and eighty-three. BARNABAS [_morosely triumphant_] Hmp! Mad, am I? BURGE-LUBIN. Youre both mad. Excuse me, Archbishop; but this is getting a bit--well-- THE ARCHBISHOP [_to Confucius_] Mr Chief Secretary: will you, to oblige me, assume that I have lived nearly three centuries? As a hypothesis? BURGE-LUBIN. What is a hypothesis? CONFUCIUS. It does not matter. I understand. [To _the Archbishop_] Am I to assume that you have lived in your ancestors, or by metempsychosis-- BURGE-LUBIN. Met--Emp--Sy--Good Lord! What a brain, Confucius! What a brain! THE ARCHBISHOP. Nothing of that kind. Assume in the ordinary sense that I was born in the year 1887, and that I have worked continuously in one profession or another since the year 1910. Am I a thief? CONFUCIUS. I do not know. Was that one of your professions? THE ARCHBISHOP. No. I have been nothing worse than an Archbishop, a President, and a General. BARNABAS. Has he or has he not robbed the Exchequer by drawing five or six incomes when he was only entitled to one? Answer me that. CONFUCIUS. Certainly not. The hypothesis is that he has worked continuously since 1910. We are now in the year 2170. What is the official lifetime? BARNABAS. Seventy-eight. Of course it's an average; and we don't mind a man here and there going on to ninety, or even, as a curiosity, becoming a centenarian. But I say that a man who goes beyond that is a swindler. 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?