Crawshaw. No doubt you can twist it about so that—
Richard. All right, we'll leave that and go on to the next point. Suppose a perfect stranger offered you five pounds to part your hair down the middle, shave off your mustache, and wear only one whisker—if he met you suddenly in the street, seemed to dislike your appearance, took out a fiver and begged you to hurry off and alter yourself—of course you'd pocket the money and go straight to your barber's?
Crawshaw. Now you are merely being offensive.
Richard. I beg your pardon. I should have said that if he had left you five pounds in his will?—well, then twenty pounds?—a hundred pounds?—a thousand pounds?—fifty thousand pounds?—[Jumping up excitedly.] It's only a question of price—fifty thousand pounds, Robert—a pink tie with purple spots, hair parted across the back, trousers with a patch in the seat, call myself Wurzel-Flummery—any old thing you like, you can't insult me—anything you like, gentlemen, for fifty thousand pounds. [Lowering his voice.] Only you must leave it in your will, and then I can feel that it is a sacred duty—a sacred duty, my lords and gentlemen. [He sinks back into the sofa and relights his pipe.]
Crawshaw [rising with dignity]. It is evidently useless to prolong this conversation.
Richard [waving him down again]. No, no, Robert; I've finished. I just took the other side—and I got carried away. I ought to have been at the Bar.
Crawshaw. You take such extraordinary views of things. You must look facts in the face, Richard. This is a modern world, and we are modern people living in it. Take the matter-of-fact view. You may like or dislike the name of—ah—Wurzel-Flummery, but you can't get away from the fact that fifty thousand pounds is not to be sneezed at.
Richard [wistfully]. I don't know why people shouldn't sneeze at money sometimes. I should like to start a society for sneezing at fifty thousand pounds. We'd have to begin in a small way, of course; we'd begin by sneezing at five pounds—and work up.... The trouble is that we're all inoculated in our cradles against that kind of cold.
Crawshaw [pleasantly]. You will have your little joke. But you know as well as I do that it is only a joke. There can be no serious reason why I should not take this money. And I—ah—gather that you don't think it will affect my career?
Richard [carelessly]. Not a bit. It'll help it. It'll get you into all the comic papers.