PRESS. Ah! [Musing] I feel that your views are strikingly original, Lord William. If you could just open out on them a little more? How far would you apply kindness in practice?
LORD W. Can you apply it in theory?
PRESS. I believe it is done. But would you allow yourself to be blown up with impunity?
LORD W. Well, that's a bit extreme. But I quite sympathise with this chap. Imagine yourself in his shoes. He sees a huge house, all these bottles; us swilling them down; perhaps he's got a starving wife, or consumptive kids.
PRESS. [Writing and murmuring] Um-m! "Kids."
LORD W. He thinks: "But for the grace of God, there swill I. Why should that blighter have everything and I nothing?" and all that.
PRESS. [Writing] "And all that." [Eagerly] Yes?
LORD W. And gradually—you see—this contrast—becomes an obsession with him. "There's got to be an example made," he thinks; and—er— he makes it, don't you know?
PRESS. [Writing] Ye-es? And—when you're the example?
LORD W. Well, you feel a bit blue, of course. But my point is that you quite see it.