CONFUCIUS. Give yourself up to contemplation; and great thoughts will come to you.
BURGE-LUBIN. Will they? If you think I am going to sit here on a fine day like this with my legs crossed waiting for great thoughts, you exaggerate my taste for them. I prefer marine golf. [Stopping short] Oh, by the way, I forgot something. I have a word or two to say to the Minister of health. [He goes back to his chair].
CONFUCIUS. Her number is—
BURGE-LUBIN. I know it.
CONFUCIUS [rising] I cannot understand her attraction for you. For me a woman who is not yellow does not exist, save as an official. [He goes out].
Burge-Lubin operates his switchboard as before. The screen vanishes: and a dainty room with a bed, a wardrobe, and a dressing-table with a mirror and a switch on it, appears. Seated at it a handsome negress is trying on a brilliant head scarf. Her dressing-gown is thrown back from her shoulders to her chair. She is in corset, knickers, and silk stockings.
BURGE-LUBIN [horrified] I beg your pardon a thousand times—[The startled negress snatches the peg out of her switchboard and vanishes].
THE NEGRESS'S VOICE. Who is it?
BURGE-LUBIN. Me. The President. Burge-Lubin. I had no idea your bedroom switch was in. I beg your pardon.
The negress reappears. She has pulled the dressing-gown perfunctorily over her shoulders, and continues her experiments with the scarf, not at all put out, and rather amused by Surge's prudery.