B. B. That is the word I was trying to remember. Reptile.
WALPOLE. I cant help rather liking you, Dubedat. But you certainly are a thoroughgoing specimen.
SIR PATRICK. You know our opinion of you now, at all events.
LOUIS [patiently putting down his pencil] Look here. All this is no good. You dont understand. You imagine that I’m simply an ordinary criminal.
WALPOLE. Not an ordinary one, Dubedat. Do yourself justice.
LOUIS. Well youre on the wrong tack altogether. I’m not a criminal. All your moralizings have no value for me. I don’t believe in morality. I’m a disciple of Bernard Shaw.
SIR PATRICK [puzzled] Eh?
B.B. [waving his hand as if the subject was now disposed of] Thats enough, I wish to hear no more.
LOUIS. Of course I havnt the ridiculous vanity to set up to be exactly a Superman; but still, it’s an ideal that I strive towards just as any other man strives towards his ideal.
B. B. [intolerant] Dont trouble to explain. I now understand you perfectly. Say no more, please. When a man pretends to discuss science, morals, and religion, and then avows himself a follower of a notorious and avowed anti-vaccinationist, there is nothing more to be said. [Suddenly putting in an effusive saving clause in parenthesis to Ridgeon] Not, my dear Ridgeon, that I believe in vaccination in the popular sense any more than you do: I neednt tell you that. But there are things that place a man socially; and anti-vaccination is one of them. [He resumes his seat on the dais].