FRANKLYN. Our program is only that the term of human life shall be extended to three hundred years.
LUBIN [softly] Eh?
BURGE [explosively] What!
SAVVY. Our election cry is 'Back to Methuselah!'
HASLAM. Priceless!
Lubin and Surge look at one another.
CONRAD. No. We are not mad.
SAVVY. Theyre not joking either. They mean it.
LUBIN [cautiously] Assuming that, in some sense which I am for the moment unable to fathom, you are in earnest, Mr Barnabas, may I ask what this has to do with politics?
FRANKLYN. The connection is very evident. You are now, Mr Lubin, within immediate reach of your seventieth year. Mr Joyce Surge is your junior by about eleven years. You will go down to posterity as one of a European group of immature statesmen and monarchs who, doing the very best for your respective countries of which you were capable, succeeded in all-but-wrecking the civilization of Europe, and did, in effect, wipe out of existence many millions of its inhabitants.