ACT I

THE SCENE THROUGHOUT IS A sitting-room in the well-furnished West End

abode of the Culvers. There is a door, back. There is also another door

(L) leading to Mrs. Culver’s boudoir and elsewhere.

Hildegarde is sitting at a desk, writing. John, in a lounging

attitude, is reading a newspaper.

Enter Tranto, back.

TRANTO. Good evening.

HILDEGARDE (turning slightly in her seat and giving him her left hand,

the right still holding a pen). Good evening. Excuse me one moment.

TRANTO. All right about my dining here to-night? (Hildegarde nods.)

Larder equal to the strain?

HILDEGARDE. Macaroni.

TRANTO. Splendid.

HILDEGARDE. Beefsteak.

TRANTO. Great heavens! (imitates sketchily the motions of cutting up a

piece of steak. Shaking hands with John, who has risen). Well, John.

How are things? Don’t let me disturb you. Have a cigarette.

JOHN (flattered). Thanks. (As they light cigarettes.) You’re the

first person here that’s treated me like a human being.

TRANTO. Oh!

JOHN. Yes. They all treat me as if I was a schoolboy home for the hols.

TRANTO. But you are, aren’t you?

JOHN. In a way, of course. But—well, don’t you see what I mean?

TRANTO (sympathetically). You mean that a schoolboy home for the hols

isn’t necessarily something escaped out of the Zoo.

JOHN (warming). That’s it.

TRANTO. In fact, what you mean is you’re really an individual very like

the rest of us, subject, if I may say so, to the common desires,

weaknesses and prejudices of humanity—and not a damned freak.

JOHN (brightly). That’s rather good, that is. If it’s a question of

the Zoo, what I say is—what price home? Now, homes are extraordinary

if you like—I don’t know whether you’ve ever noticed it. School—you

can understand school. But home—! Strange things happen here while I’m

away.

TRANTO. Yes?

JOHN. It was while I was away they appointed Dad a controller. When I

heard—I laughed. Dad a controller! Why, he can’t even control mother.

HILDEGARDE (without looking round). Oh yes he can.

JOHN (pretending to start back). Stay me with flagons! (Resuming to

Tranto.) And you’re something new here since the summer holidays.

TRANTO. I never looked at myself in that light. But I suppose I am

rather new here.

JOHN. Not quite new. But you’ve made a lot of progress during the last

term.

TRANTO. That’s comforting.

JOHN. You understand what I mean. You were rather stiff and prim in

August—now you aren’t a bit.

TRANTO. Just so. Well, I won’t ask you what you think of me, John—you

might tell me—but what do you think of my newspaper?

JOHN. The Echo? I don’t know what to think. You see, we don’t read

newspapers much at school. Some of the masters do. And a few chaps in

the Fifth—swank, of course. But speaking generally we don’t. Prefects

don’t. No time.

TRANTO. How strange! Aren’t you interested in the war?

JOHN. Interested in the war! Would you mind if I spoke plainly?

TRANTO. I should love it.

JOHN. Each time I come home I wonder more and more whether you people in

London have got the slightest notion what war really is. Fact! At

school, it’s just because we are interested in the war that we’ve no

time for newspapers.

TRANTO. How’s that?

JOHN. How’s that? Well, munition workshops—with government inspectors

tumbling all over us about once a week. O.T.C. work. Field days.

Cramming fellows for Sandhurst. Not to mention female masters.

‘Mistresses,’ I ought to say, perhaps. All these things take time.

TRANTO. I never thought of that.

JOHN. No. People don’t. However, I’ve decided to read newspapers in

future—it’ll be part of my scheme. That’s why I was reading The

Echo. Now, I should like to ask you something about this paper of

yours.

TRANTO. Yes.

JOHN. Why do you let Hilda write those articles for you about food

economy stunts in the household?

TRANTO. Well—(hesitating)

JOHN. Now, I look at things practically. When Hilda’d spent all her

dress allowance and got into debt besides, about a year and a half ago,

she suddenly remembered she wasn’t doing much to help the war, and so

she went into the Food Ministry as a typist at thirty-five shillings a

week. Next she learnt typing. Then she became an authority on

everything. And now she’s concocting these food articles for you.

Believe me, the girl knows nothing whatever about cookery. She couldn’t

fry a sausage for nuts. Once the mater insisted on her doing the

housekeeping—in the holidays, too! Stay me with flagons!

HILDEGARDE (without looking round). Stay you with chocolates, you

mean, Johnnie, dear.

JOHN. There you are! Her thoughts fly instantly to chocolates—and in

the fourth year of the greatest war that the world—

HILDEGARDE. Etcetera, etcetera.

TRANTO. Then do I gather that you don’t entirely approve of your

sister’s articles?

JOHN. Tripe, I think. My fag could write better. I’ll tell you what I do

approve of. I approve of that article to-day by that chap Sampson

Straight about titles and the shameful traffic in honours, and the rot

of the hereditary principle, and all that sort of thing.

TRANTO. I’m glad. Delivers the goods, doesn’t he, Mr. Sampson Straight?

JOHN. Well, I think so. Who is he?

TRANTO. One of my discoveries, John. He sent me in an article about—let

me see, when was it?—about eight months ago. I at once perceived that

in Mr. Sampson Straight I had got on to a bit of all right. And I was

not mistaken. He has given London beans pretty regularly once a week

ever since.

JOHN. He must have given the War Cabinet neuralgia this afternoon,

anyhow. I should like to meet him.

TRANTO. I’m afraid that’s impossible.

JOHN. Is it? Why?

TRANTO. Well, I haven’t met him myself yet. He lives at a quiet country

place in Cornwall. Hermit, I believe. Hates any kind of publicity.

Absolutely refuses to be photographed.

JOHN. Photographed! I should think not! But couldn’t you get him to come

and lecture at school? We have frightful swells, you know.

TRANTO. I expect you do. But he wouldn’t come.

JOHN. I wish he would. We had a debate the other Saturday night on,

Should the hereditary principle be abolished?

TRANTO. And did you abolish it?

JOHN. Did we abolish it? I should say we did. Eighty-five to twenty-one.

Some debate, believe me!

HILDEGARDE (looking round). Yes, but didn’t you tell us once that in

your Debating Society the speakers always tossed for sides beforehand?

JOHN (shrugging his shoulders. More confidentially to Tranto). As I

was saying, I’m going to read the papers in future, as part of my

scheme. And d’you know what the scheme is? (Impressively.) I’ve

decided to take up a political career.

TRANTO. Good!

JOHN. Yes, it was during that hereditary principle debate that I

decided. It came over me all of a sudden while I was on the last lap of

my speech and the fellows were cheering. And so I want to understand

first of all the newspaper situation in London. There are one or two

things about it I don’t understand.

TRANTO. Not more? I can explain the newspaper situation to you in ten

words. You know I’ve got a lot of uncles. I daresay I’ve got more uncles

than anybody else in ‘Who’s Who.’ Well, I own The Echo,—inherited it

from my father. My uncles own all the rest of the press—(airily) with

a few trifling exceptions. That’s the London newspaper situation. Quite

simple, isn’t it?

JOHN. But of course The Echo is up against all your uncles’ papers—at

least it seems so.

TRANTO. Absolutely up against them. Tooth and nail. Daggers drawn. No

quarter. Death or victory.

JOHN. But do you and your uncles speak to each other?

TRANTO. Best...