MACAIRE. Ay, here it is. (_Reading letter_). ‘Preserve this letter secretly; its terms are known only to you and me: hence when the time comes, I shall repeat them, and my son will recognise his father.’ Signed: ‘Your Unknown Benefactor.’ (_He turns it over twice and replaces it_. _Then_, _fingering the gold_) Gold! The yellow enchantress, happiness ready-made and laughing in my face! Gold: what is gold? The world; the term of ills; the empery of all; the multitudinous babble of the change, the sailing from all ports of freighted argosies; music, wine, a palace; the doors of the bright theatre, the key of consciences, and love—love’s whistle! All this below my itching fingers; and to set this by, turn a deaf ear upon the siren present, and condescend once more, naked, into the ring with fortune—Macaire, how few would do it! But you, Macaire, you are compacted of more subtile clay. No cheap immediate pilfering: no retail trade of petty larceny; but swoop at the heart of the position, and clutch all! BERTRAND (_at his shoulder_). Halves! MACAIRE. Halves? (_He locks the box_.) Bertrand, I am a father. (_Replaces box in office_.) BERTRAND (_looking after him_). Well, I—am—damned! * * * * * DROP. ACT II. _When the curtain rises_, _the night has come_. _A hanging cluster of lighted lamps over each table_, _R. and L._ MACAIRE, _R._, _smoking a cigarette_; BERTRAND, _L._, _with a church-warden_: _each with bottle and glass_ SCENE I MACAIRE, BERTRAND MACAIRE. Bertrand, I am content: a child might play with me. Does your pipe draw well? BERTRAND. Like a factory chimney. This is my notion of life: liquor, a chair, a table to put my feet on, a fine clean pipe, and no police. MACAIRE. Bertrand, do you see these changing exhalations? do you see these blue rings and spirals, weaving their dance, like a round of fairies, on the footless air? BERTRAND. I see ’em right enough. MACAIRE. Man of little vision, expound me these meteors! what do they signify, O wooden-head? Clod, of what do they consist? BERTRAND. Damned bad tobacco. MACAIRE. I will give you a little course of science. Everything, Bertrand (much as it may surprise you), has three states: a vapour, a liquid, a solid. These are fortune in the vapour: these are ideas. What are ideas? the protoplasm of wealth. To your head—which, by the way, is a solid, Bertrand—what are they but foul air? To mine, to my prehensile and constructive intellects, see, as I grasp and work them, to what lineaments of the future they transform themselves: a palace, a barouche, a pair of luminous footmen, plate, wine, respect, and to be honest! BERTRAND. But what’s the sense in honesty? MACAIRE. The sense? You see me: Macaire: elegant, immoral, invincible in cunning; well, Bertrand, much as it may surprise you, I am simply damned by my dishonesty. BERTRAND. No!