BETHAAL: Nothing odd about that! [_He laughs rather loudly, and Hanno, who wishes he had said the witty thing, smirks gently without enthusiasm. Then he proceeds on another track._] I find plenty in the papers! [_He puffs like a grampus._] HANNO: Plenty about yourself!... That’s the only good of politics, and precious little good either.... What I can’t conceive--as you _do_ happen to be the in’s and not the out’s--is why you don’t send more men from somewhere; he has asked for them often enough. BETHAAL [_wisely_]: They’re all against it; couldn’t get anyone to agree but little Schem [_laughs loudly_]; he’d agree to anything. HANNO [_wagging his head sagely_]: He’ll be Suffete, my boy! He’ll be a Sephad all right! He’s my sister’s own boy. BETHAAL [_surlily_]: Shouldn’t wonder! All you Hannos get the pickings. HANNO: You talk like a book.... Anyhow, what about the reinforcements?--that _does_ interest me. BETHAAL [_wearily_]: Oh, really. I’ve heard about it until I’m tired. It isn’t the reinforcements that are wanted really; it’s money, and plenty of it. That’s what it is. [_He looks about the room in search for a word._] That’s what it is. [_He continues to look about the room._] That’s what it is ... er ... really. [_Having found the word Bethaal is content, and Hanno remains silent for a few minutes, then_:] HANNO: He doesn’t seem to be doing much. BETHAAL [_jumping up suddenly with surprising vigour for a man of close on seventy, and sticking his hands into his pockets, if Carthaginians had pockets_]: That’s it! That’s exactly it! That’s what I say, What Hannibal really wants is money. He’s got the _men_ right enough. The _men_ are splendid, but all those putrid little Italian towns are asking to be bribed, and I _can’t_ get the money out of Mohesh. HANNO [_really interested_]: Yes, now? Mohesh has got the old tradition, and I do believe it’s the sound one. Our money is as important to us as our Fleet, I mean our _credit’s_ as important to us as our Fleet, and he’s perfectly right is Mohesh.... [_Firmly_] I wouldn’t let you have a penny if I were at the Treasury. BETHAAL [_surlily_]: Well, he’s bound to take Rome at last anyway, so I don’t suppose it matters whether he has the money or not; but it makes _me_ look like a fool. When everything was going well I didn’t care, but I do care now. [_He holds up in succession three fat fingers_]. First there was Drephia---- HANNO [_interrupting_]: Trebbia. BETHAAL: Oh, well, I don’t care.... Then there was Trasimene; then there was that other place which wasn’t marked on the map, and little Schem found for me in the very week in which I got him on to the Front Bench. You remember his speech? [HANNO _shakes his head_.] BETHAAL [_impatiently_]: Oh well, anyhow you remember Cannae, don’t you? HANNO: Oh yes, I remember Cannae.