Back to Methuselah: A Metabiological PentateuchShaw, Bernard
Philosophy
Back to Methuselah: A Metabiological Pentateuch
Shaw, Bernard
Drama
THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. It is--well, it is a civilized country.
[_Desperately_] I don't know: I--I--I--I shall go mad if you keep on
asking me to tell you things that everybody knows. Countries where you
can travel comfortably. Where there are good hotels. Excuse me; but,
though you say you are ninety-four, you are worse company than a child
of five with your eternal questions. Why not call me Daddy at once?
THE MAN. I did not know your name was Daddy.
THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. My name is Joseph Popham Bolge Bluebin Barlow,
O.M.
THE MAN. That is five men's names. Daddy is shorter. And O.M. will not
do here. It is our name for certain wild creatures, descendants of
the aboriginal inhabitants of this coast. They used to be called the
O'Mulligans. We will stick to Daddy.
THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. People will think I am your father.
THE MAN [_shocked_] Sh-sh! People here never allude to such
relationships. It is not quite delicate, is it? What does it matter
whether you are my father or not?
THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. My worthy nonagenarian friend: your faculties are
totally decayed. Could you not find me a guide of my own age?
THE MAN. A young person?
THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Certainly not. I cannot go about with a young
person.
THE MAN. Why?
THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Why! Why!! Why!!! Have you no moral sense?
THE MAN. I shall have to give you up. I cannot understand you.
THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. But you meant a young woman, didn't you?
THE MAN. I meant simply somebody of your own age. What difference does
it make whether the person is a man or a woman?
THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. I could not have believed in the existence of
such scandalous insensibility to the elementary decencies of human
intercourse.
THE MAN. What are decencies?
THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN [_shrieking_] Everyone asks me that.
THE MAN [_taking out a tuning-fork and using it as the woman did_] Zozim
on Burrin Pier to Zoo Ennistymon I have found the discouraged shortliver
he has been talking to a secondary and is much worse I am too old he is
asking for someone of his own age or younger come if you can. [_He puts
up his fork and turns to the Elderly Gentleman_]. Zoo is a girl of
fifty, and rather childish at that. So perhaps she may make you happy.
THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Make me happy! A bluestocking of fifty! Thank
you.
THE MAN. Bluestocking? The effort to make out your meaning is fatiguing.
Besides, you are talking too much to me: I am old enough to discourage
you. Let us be silent until Zoo comes. [_He turns his back on the
Elderly Gentleman, and sits down on the edge of the pier, with his legs
dangling over the water_].
THE ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. Certainly. I have no wish to force my
conversation on any man who does not desire it. Perhaps you would like
to take a nap. If so, pray do not stand on ceremony.
THE MAN. What is a nap?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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