BURGE-LUBIN. Look here. Do you chaps realize how awful this is? Here we are sitting calmly in the presence of a man whose death is overdue by two centuries. He may crumble into dust before our eyes at any moment. BARNABAS. Not he. He'll go on drawing his pension until the end of the world. THE ARCHBISHOP. Not quite that. My expectation of life is only three hundred years. BARNABAS. You will last out my time anyhow: that's enough for me. THE ARCHBISHOP [_coolly_] How do you know? BARNABAS [_taken aback_] How do I know! THE ARCHBISHOP. Yes: how do you know? I did not begin even to suspect until I was nearly seventy. I was only vain of my youthful appearance. I was not quite serious about it until I was ninety. Even now I am not sure from one moment to another, though I have given you my reason for thinking that I have quite unintentionally committed myself to a lifetime of three hundred years. BURGE-LUBIN. But how do you do it? Is it lemons? Is it Soya beans? Is it-- THE ARCHBISHOP. I do not do it. It happens. It may happen to anyone. It may happen to you. BURGE-LUBIN [_the full significance of this for himself dawning on him_] Then we three may be in the same boat with you, for all we know? THE ARCHBISHOP. You may. Therefore I advise you to be very careful how you take any step that will make my position uncomfortable. BURGE-LUBIN. Well, I'm dashed! One of my secretaries was remarking only this morning how well and young I am looking. Barnabas: I have an absolute conviction that I am one of the--the--shall I say one of the victims?--of this strange destiny. THE ARCHBISHOP. Your great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather formed the same conviction when he was between sixty and seventy. I knew him. BURGE-LUBIN [_depressed_] Ah! But he died. THE ARCHBISHOP. No. BURGE-LUBIN [_hopefully_] Do you mean to say he is still alive? THE ARCHBISHOP. No. He was shot. Under the influence of his belief that he was going to live three hundred years he became a changed man. He began to tell people the truth; and they disliked it so much that they took advantage of certain clauses of an Act of Parliament he had himself passed during the Four Years War, and had purposely forgotten to repeal afterwards. They took him to the Tower of London and shot him. _The apparatus rings._ CONFUCIUS [_answering_] Yes? [_He listens_]. A WOMAN'S VOICE. The Domestic Minister has called. BURGE-LUBIN [_not quite catching the answer_] Who does she say has called? CONFUCIUS. The Domestic Minister. BARNABAS. Oh, dash it! That awful woman! BURGE-LUBIN. She certainly is a bit of a terror. I don't exactly know why; for she is not at all bad-looking. BARNABAS [_out of patience_] For Heaven's sake, don't be frivolous. THE ARCHBISHOP. He cannot help it, Mr Accountant General. Three of his sixteen great-great-great-grandfathers married Lubins. BURGE-LUBIN. Tut tut! I am not frivolling. _I_ did not ask the lady here. Which of you did?