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Contents
General Editor’s Preface
Introduction
Bernard Shaw and His Times: A Chronology
A Note on the Text
Part I. Speeches and Lectures
1. “The Religion of the British Empire,” address at the City Temple, London, 22 November 1906. [ReligiousSpeeches, pp. 1–8]
2. “The New Theology,” address at the Kensington Town Hall, London, 16 May 1907. [ReligiousSpeeches, pp. 9–19]
3. “The Ideal of Citizenship,” address at the City Temple, London, 11 October 1909. [ReligiousSpeeches, pp. 20–28]
4. “The Religion of the Future,” address to the Heretics Society, Cambridge, 29 May 1911. [ReligiousSpeeches, pp. 29–37]
5. “Modern Religion I,” notes of an address to the New Reform Club, London, 21 March 1912. [ReligiousSpeeches, pp. 38–49]
6. “What Irish Protestants Think,” address at Memorial Hall, London, 6 December 1912. [ReligiousSpeeches, pp. 50–53]
7. “On Christian Economics,” address to the City Temple Literary and Debating Society, London, 30 October 1913. [Allan Chappelow, Shaw—“TheChucker-Out.”ABiographical ExpositionandCritique(London: George Allen and Unwin, 1969, pp. 130–61]
8. “Modern Religion II,” address at the Hampstead Conservatoire, London, 13 November 1919. [ReligiousSpeeches, pp. 60–80]
9. “Religion and Science,” a toast to Albert Einstein at the Savoy Hotel, London, 28 October 1930. [SHAW:TheAnnualofBernard ShawStudies15 (1995), pp. 232–41]
10. “Bradlaugh and Today,” address at Friends House, Euston Road, London, 23 September 1933. [ReligiousSpeeches, pp. 89–93]
11. “Religion and War,” an untitled BBC broadcast, 2 November 1937. [ReligiousSpeeches, pp. 94–99]
Part II. Essays and Journalism
1. From “On Going to Church,” TheSavoy1 (January 1896), pp. 13–28. [ShawonReligion, pp. 19–25]
2. “On Miracles: A Retort,” TheNewAge(10 December 1908), pp. 129–30. [ShawonReligion, pp. 42–48]
3. “God Must be Non-Sectarian and International,” TheChristian Commonwealth(17 July 1912), p. 683. [ShawonReligion, pp. 54–59]
4. From CommonSenseAbouttheWar, TheNewStatesman(14 November 1914). [ShawonReligion, pp. 60–62]
5. “A Catechism on My Creed,” St.Martin-in-the-FieldsReview (May 1922). [ShawonReligion, pp. 128–31]
6. “On Ritual, Religion, and the Intolerableness of Tolerance,” 1922. [ShawonReligion, pp. 148–71]
7. “The Infancy of God,” an essay written around 1922. [Shawon Religion, pp. 132–42]
8. “A Note on the Prayer Book,” an essay written around 1922. [ShawonReligion, pp. 143–47]
9. “Where Darwin Is Taboo: The Bible in America,” NewLeader (10 July 1925). [TheShavian2.2 (1960), pp. 3–9]
10. “Personal Immortality,” DailyNews(6 June 1928). [Shawon Religion, pp. 181–83]
11. Afterword to TheAdventuresoftheBlackGirlinHerSearch forGod(London: Constable, 1932), pp. 59–75.
12. Letters to Dame Laurentia McLachlan, 1933 and 1935. [Shaw onReligion, pp. 201–07]
13. “Religious Summary,” Everybody’sPoliticalWhat’sWhat? (London: Constable, 1944), pp. 357–63.
14. “The God of Bernard Shaw,” TheFreethinker66 (30 June 1946), p. 241. [Agitations, pp. 338–39]
15. “What Is My Religious Faith?” SixteenSelfSketches(London: Constable, 1949), pp. 73–79.
16. “If I Were a Priest,” AtlanticMonthly185.5 (May 1950), pp. 70–72.
Muscularparsons
Apreciousrarity
Aturnipghost
Freedomorslavery?
Expediencies
“NoFaithinDemocracy”
Ashyscholar
Part III. Prefaces to the Plays
1. From the preface to JohnBull’sOtherIsland, 1906. [TheBodley HeadBernardShaw, vol. 2, pp. 821–26]
Irish Protestantism Really Protestant
2. From the preface to MajorBarbara, 1906. [TheBodleyHead BernardShaw, vol. 3, pp. 50–51, 56]
3. From the preface to GettingMarried:ADisquisitoryPlay, 1911. [TheBodleyHeadBernardShaw, vol. 3, pp. 532–35]
Christian Marriage
Divorce a Sacramental Duty
4. From “Parents and Children,” the preface to Misalliance, 1914. [TheBodleyHeadBernardShaw, vol. 4, pp. 67–70, 74–76, 124–33]
The Sin of Athanasius
Antichrist
The Impossibility of Secular Education
Natural Selection as a Religion
Moral Instruction Leagues
The Bible
5. From “Preface on the Prospects of Christianity,” the preface to AndroclesandtheLion:AFablePlay, 1915. [TheBodleyHead BernardShaw, vol. 4, pp. 463–64, 479–72, 486–87, 562–63, 567–70]
Was Jesus a Martyr?
The Difference Between Atonement and Punishment
Salvation at First a Class Privilege; and the Remedy
The Miracles
Belief in Personal Immortality no Criterion
The Importance of Hell in the Salvation Scheme
The Right to Refuse Atonement
The Teaching of Christianity
6. From the preface to SaintJoan:AChroniclePlayinSixScenes andanEpilogue, 1924. [TheBodleyHeadBernardShaw, vol. 6, pp. 54–56]
Catholicism not yet Catholic Enough
7. From the preface to TooTruetoBeGood:APolitical Extravaganza, 1933. [TheBodleyHeadBernardShaw, vol. 6, pp. 414–16, 418–20]
The Catholic Solution
Why the Christian System Failed
8. From the preface to OntheRocks:APoliticalComedy, 1933. [TheBodleyHeadBernardShaw, vol. 6, pp. 586–89]
Leading Case of Jesus Christ
“Crosstianity”
9. From “The Infidel Half Century,” the preface to Backto Methuselah:AMetabiologicalPentateuch, 1921. [TheBodley HeadBernardShaw, vol. 5, pp. 325–31]
Religion and Romance
The Danger of Reaction
A Touchstone for Dogma
What to do With the Legends
10. From the preface to FarfetchedFables, 1948–49. [TheBodley
HeadBernardShaw, vol. 7, pp. 385–87, 389–401]
Divine Providence
Satanic Solution of the Problem of Evil
Mendacity Compulsory in Kingcraft and Priestcraft
G. B. S. Miracle Faker
Parental Dilemmas
The All or Nothing Complex
Catholicism Impracticable
The Tares and the Wheat
The Thirtynine Articles
A Hundred Religions and Only One Sauce
Sources and Further Reading
Bibiliography
Autobiography
Biography
Letters
Plays And Prefaces
Collected Religious Essays
Criticism
The Critical Shaw
General Editor’s Preface
Bernard Shaw is not the household name he once was, but in the 1920s and 1930s he was certainly the world’s most famous Englishlanguage playwright, and arguably one of the most famous people in the world. His plays were internationally performed and acclaimed, his views on matters great and small were relentlessly solicited by the media, he was pursued by paparazzi long before the word was even invented, the biggest names in politics, the arts, entertainment, even sports—Gandhi, Nehru, Churchill, Rodin, Twain, Wells, Lawrence of Arabia, Elgar, Einstein, Garbo, Chaplin, Stalin, Tunney and many more—welcomed his company, and his correspondents in the tens of thousands of letters he wrote during his long lifetime constitute a veritable who’s who of world culture and politics. And Shaw remains the only person ever to have been awarded both a Nobel Prize and an Oscar.
Shaw’s reputation rests securely not just on his plays, a dozen or so of which have come to be recognized as classics—Manand Superman,MajorBarbara,Pygmalion,and SaintJoanperhaps now the most familiar of them—but also on his early work as a music, art, literary, and theater critic, and on his lifelong political activism. After he moved to London from his native Dublin in 1876, and after completing five novels, he established himself as one of London’s most controversial, feared, and admired critics, and while he eventually retired from earning his living as a critic in order to focus
on playwriting, he continued to lecture and write about cultural and other issues—religion, for example—with scorching intelligence. As for politics, his early commitment to Socialism, and his later expressed admiration for Communism and contempt for Capitalism, meant that while his views were relentlessly refuted by the establishment press they could rarely be ignored—hardly surprising given the logic and passion that underpinned them.
Winston Churchill once declared Shaw to be “the greatest living master of letters in the English-speaking world,” and the selections from Shaw’s reviews, essays, speeches, and correspondence contained in the five volumes of this Critical Shaw series provide abundant evidence to validate Churchill’s high regard. Shaw wrote— and spoke—voluminously, and his complete works on the topics covered by this series—Literature, Music, Religion, Theater, and Politics—would fill many more than five volumes. The topics reflect Shaw’s deepest interests and they inspired some of his most brilliant nondramatic writing. The selections in each volume give a comprehensive and representative survey of his thinking, and show him to be not just the great rhetorician that Churchill and others acknowledged, but also one of the great public intellectuals of the twentieth century.
Paragraph 4 of Shaw’s Last Will and Testament, dated 12 June 1950, quoted in Michael Holroyd, TheLastLaugh[1992], 101.
Although it would be presumptuous to place Shaw alongside Thomas Aquinas or Martin Luther or Emanuel Swedenborg as a “religious thinker,” let alone a theologian, there is no aspect of religious ideology and belief that Shaw, over the course of a very long life, did not question and critique. In his speeches, lectures, essays, prefaces and plays, he commented—often vociferously—on every conceivable facet of “religion” in its broadest sense: on Christianity and the Church, Protestantism and Catholicism, Mormonism and Quakerism, Christian Science and Fundamentalism, Calvinism and Lutheranism, Hinduism and Buddhism, Judaism and Islam, ritualism and idolatry, atheism and agnosticism, atonement and salvation, sin and punishment, the crucifixion and the resurrection, transubstantiation, the Holy Trinity and the Immaculate Conception, prayer, baptism, Saint Paul (“very unchristlike” (Part II: 5. “A Catechism on My Creed”)), the Bible, the Ten Commandments
(“unsuited and inadequate to modern needs” (Part II: 11. Afterword to The Adventures of the Black Girl in Search of God)), the Bookof CommonPrayer(“saturated with blood sacrifice beyond all possible revision” (Part II: 13. “Religious Summary”), the Thirty-nine Articles of the Anglican Church, and the Athanasian Creed. In speech after essay after preface, Shaw relentlessly scrutinizes doctrines and dogma, only to find most of them in need of reform—or scrapping altogether.
Though some “religions and their sects” held his respect—“I am not so bigoted as to dismiss their experience as the inventions of liars and the fancies of noodles” (Part III: 10. From the preface to Farfetched Fables, A Hundred Religions and Only One Sauce)—he found it impossible to wholeheartedly accept most of their teachings and precepts. For all of his wide-ranging knowledge of systems of beliefs and their sacred texts, Shaw, in the end, found little in them that satisfied his personal quest for a meaning to life. “At present there is not a single credible established religion in the world,” he wrote in his 1906 preface to MajorBarbara(1905), one of many bonsmotscollected at Positive Atheism’s Big List of George Bernard Shaw Quotations. That Shaw has been co-opted as the archetypal atheist is no surprise: he has a great deal to say about atheism, and agnosticism, in many of the thirty-seven selections collected here. “Better atheist than agnostic,” he stated in 1911, as “an agnostic is only an atheist without the courage of his opinions” (Part I: 4. “The Religion of the Future”).
“I preferred to call myself an Atheist,” Shaw recalled in 1949, the year before his death at age ninety-four, “because belief in God then meant belief in the old tribal idol called Jehovah” (Part II: 15. “What Is My Religious Faith?”). That barbarous, tribal and violent aspect of religion is at the very root of Shaw’s atheism; so is his abhorrence of
the easy rationalization that “the vengeance of a terribly angry god can be bought off by a vicarious and hideously cruel blood sacrifice [that] persists even through the New Testament” (Part II: 11. Afterword to The Adventures of the Black Girl in Her Search of God). Shaw denounces on several occasions “the old doctrine of the Atonement, the old idea that in some way or other you could always get rid of your guilt and your responsibility by seizing on some innocent victim and destroying it—sacrificing it, as it was said. Whether that victim was a goat, as in the sacrifice which Abraham substituted for the sacrifice of his own son, or whether, as it afterwards came to be, it was the sacrifice of a man [Christ], still the idea was the same—the notion that in some way or other you could get rid of your guilt or your sin by shifting it on to innocent shoulders” (Part I: 7. “On Christian Economics”). This idea of atonement through sacrifice, so fundamental to so many religions, was for Shaw an “abominable doctrine” (Part I: 5. “Modern Religion I”) and an unacceptable abrogation of personal responsibility. Thus, believing that “it is very important we should have a religion of some kind” (Part I: 2. “The New Theology”), and that “there is not a single creed of an established church on earth at present that I can subscribe to” (Part I: 9. “Religion and Science”), Shaw duly invented a religion and creed of his own. He called his personal credo the Life Force: “a miracle and a mystery, …an evolutionary appetite for power and knowledge” (Part II: 14. “The God of Bernard Shaw”) that “proceeds by trial and error and creates the problem of evil by its unsuccessful experiments and its mistakes” (Part II: 15. “What Is My Religious Faith?”), and what we call “evil is nothing but imperfection” (Part I: 5 “Modern Religion I”). The Life Force “has got into the minds of men as what they call their will. Thus we see people who clearly are carrying out a will not exclusively their own”
(Part I: 4. “The Religion of the Future”). Shaw, of course, considered himself one of those people. “There is no God as yet achieved, but there is that force at work making God, struggling through us to become an actual organized existence,” he told an audience in 1907, enjoining them to “stand up and say, ‘I am God and here is God, not as yet completed, but still advancing towards completion, just in so much as I am working for the purpose of the universe, working for the good of the whole of society and the whole world, instead of merely looking after my personal ends.’ In that way… we begin to perceive that the evil of the world is a thing that will finally be evolved out of the world, that it was not brought into the world by malice and cruelty, but by an entirely benevolent designer that had not as yet discovered how to carry out its benevolent intention. In that way I think we may turn towards the future with greater hope” (Part I: 2. “The New Theology”). In short, “We are experiments in the direction of making God” (Part I: 4. “The Religion of the Future”), specifically “an omnipotent and benevolent God” (Part I: 5. “Modern Religion I”).
This optimistic (if flawed) Life Force, then, which instills in us “courage, self-respect, dignity, and purpose” (Part I: 8. “Modern Religion II”), is Shaw’s personal alternative to the teachings of the Bible, which nonetheless contains “the best examples in ancient Jewish literature of natural and political history, of poetry, morality, theology, and rhapsody” (Part II: 11. Afterword to The Adventures of the Black Girl in Her Search for God). Shaw’s remarkably thorough knowledge of the Bible is evidenced by the abundance of quotations and allusions in his speeches and writings. But he was not blind to the shortcomings of its tenets, which he often discounted or disparaged. “The English Bible,” he wrote in 1944, “though a masterpiece of literary art in its readable parts, …is yet a jumble of
savage superstitions, obsolete cosmology, and a theology which… recoils into sceptical disillusioned atheistical Pessimism… reverts to blood sacrifice… and finally explodes in a mystical opium dream of an impossible apocalypse” (Part II: 13. “Religious Summary”). How could anyone, he argued, use such a book, with all of its cruelties and mystifications and impossibilities, to guide one’s life? For Shaw, writes Warren Sylvester Smith, “Religion must be practical. It must concern itself with justice and economics and the social order and the divine value of life (BishopofEverywhere, p. 53). Expounding at length on that idea in the selections that follow, Shaw links religion to every dimension of life, from political systems (such as Communism) and scientific discoveries (such as natural selection) to marriage, divorce and the education of children.
In addition to his comments on religion and related matters scattered throughout his writings, Shaw wrote a number of fulllength works dealing with religious themes. Although too lengthy to be included here, they dramatize many of Shaw’s fundamental “religious” ideas and beliefs: PassionPlay:ADramaticFragment (1878), MajorBarbara(1905), TheShewing-upofBlancoPosnet (1909), AndroclesandtheLion(1912)—with its 37,000-word “Preface on the Prospects of Christianity” that includes sections on each of the four Gospels—SaintJoan(1924), TheAdventuresofthe BlackGirlinHerSearchforGod(1932) and OntheRocks(1933), which includes a dialogue between Pilate and Jesus. Clearly, a compendium of Shaw’s writings on religion—at the platform, in print and onstage—would take up many volumes. In fact Shaw himself had once planned a volume entitled ReligionandReligions, to be included in an edition of his Collected Works (Laurence Bibliography I: 30). Although Shaw abandoned the project, perhaps this Rosetta collection will prove an adequate substitute.
The following selections of Shaw’s pronouncements and writings on religion are divided by genre: speeches and lectures, essays and journalism, and prefaces to the plays. Inevitably, context often shapes content. For instance, when at the lectern—or, rather, in the pulpit—Shaw is at his most expansive, often speaking extemporaneously or from only a few notes. But whether speaking to a live audience or writing for a vast readership, Shaw returns time and again to a favorite anecdote—William Blake’s “Nobodaddy” and Percy Shelley denouncing God as an “almighty fiend,” or Shaw taking out his watch and challenging God to strike him dead in five minutes —or to a favorite biblical passage (Elisha and the bears, Jonah and the whale), and invokes his favorite, like-minded authorities, among them Henri Bergson, Samuel Butler, John Bunyan, Charles Bradlaugh, Charles Darwin, Shelley, Henrik Ibsen, Karl Marx, Voltaire and of course Shakespeare.
Although Shaw was fond of calling himself an atheist, he nonetheless recognized the necessity and importance of religion. For “without religion men are political time-servers and cowards,” he stated in a message to the Shaw Society of America on the occasion of its foundation on 26 July 1950, his ninety-fourth birthday (quoted in Allan Chappelow, ShawtheVillagerandHumanBeing[1961], 334). Neither was Shaw devoid of belief. Take this remarkable passage (published only once before) written in 1922: “Nothing must come between me and the spirit that moves within me; and though I do not walk by the inner light alone, but by all the light I can get, from without or within, yet I must interpret what I see for myself. And if that is not the quintessence of Quakerism, and indeed of genuine Quakerism, I do not know what Quakerism means” (Part II: 6. “On Ritual, Religion, and the Intolerableness of Tolerance”). That
“spirit,” in which Shaw believed with unshakable certainty, is his own quintessence: the Life Force.
On 27 August 1895, Shaw wrote to bookseller Frederick H. Evans: “I want to write a big book of devotion for modern people, bringing in all the truths latent in the old religious dogmas into contact with real life—a gospel of Shawianity” (CollectedLettersI:551).
Something of a Gospel According to GBS can be found in the following pages.
Bernard Shaw and His Times: A Chronology
[ThischronologyiscommontoallfivevolumesintheCriticalShaw series,andreflectsthetopicsoftheseries:Politics,Theater , Literature,Music,andReligion.Foracomprehensiveanddetailed chronologyofShaw’slifeandworks,seeA.M.Gibbs,A Bernard Shaw Chronology (Basingstoke:Palgrave,2001).]
1856 Shaw born in Dublin (26 July).
1859 Charles Darwin publishes OntheOriginofSpeciesby MeansofNaturalSelection.
1864 Herbert Spencer publishes PrinciplesofBiology(and coins the phrase “survival of the fittest”).
1865 The Salvation Army is founded by Methodist preacher William Booth.
1870 The doctrine of papal infallibility is defined as dogma at the First Vatican Council.
1876 Shaw moves from Dublin to London. He begins ghostwriting music reviews for Vandeleur Lee for The Hornet.
1879 Shaw begins writing music reviews for TheSaturday MusicalReview, TheCourtJournal, and other publications. He writes his first novel, Immaturity, quickly followed by four others: TheIrrationalKnot (1880), LoveAmongtheArtists(1881), Cashel Byron’sProfession(1882), and AnUnsocialSocialist (1883).
1883 Shaw reads Karl Marx’s DasKapital(in a French translation) in the British Museum Reading Room.
1884 The Fabian Society is founded; Shaw joins in the same year. He publishes his first book review in The ChristianScientist.
1885 Shaw begins publishing book reviews regularly in The PallMallGazette.
1886 Eleanor Marx, daughter of Karl Marx, organizes a reading of Ibsen’s ADoll’sHouse; Shaw reads the part of Krogstad.
1889 Having written music reviews for over a decade, Shaw becomes a full-time critic for TheStar, and then (in 1890) TheWorld.
1891 Shaw publishes TheQuintessenceofIbsenism(revised and updated in 1922).
1892 Shaw’s first play, Widowers’Houses, is performed.
1893 Founding of the Independent Labour Party, a socialist advocacy group.
1894 Shaw resigns from TheWorldand henceforth writes only occasional music reviews. ArmsandtheManis first performed. Shaw becomes acquainted with aspiring theatre critic Reginald Golding Bright.
1895 Shaw becomes full-time drama critic for TheSaturday Review. He publishes a lengthy review column almost every week for the next two and a half years.
1897 Shaw is elected a member of the Vestry of the Parish of St Pancras (until 1903).
1898 Shaw marries Charlotte Payne-Townshend and resigns as TheSaturdayReviewdrama critic. He publishes ThePerfectWagneriteand Plays:Pleasantand Unpleasant. One of the “unpleasant” plays, Mrs Warren’sProfession, is refused a performance licence by the Lord Chamberlain; the ban will stay in effect until 1924.
1901 CaesarandCleopatrais first performed, with music written by Shaw. Queen Victoria dies.
1904 J. E. Vedrenne and Harley Granville Barker begin their management of the Court Theatre (until 1907), with Shaw as a principal playwright. Eleven Shaw plays are performed in three seasons.
1905 ManandSupermanis first performed. Albert Einstein publishes his theory of relativity.
1906 Founding of the Labour Party. MajorBarbaraand The Doctor’sDilemmaare first performed.
1908 DertapfereSoldat, an unauthorized operetta loosely based on ArmsandtheMan, with music by Oscar Straus and libretto by Rudolf Bernauer and Leopold Jacobson, is first performed in Vienna. It is later staged (1910) in translation as TheChocolateSoldier.
1909 TheShewing-upofBlancoPosnetis refused a licence by the Lord Chamberlain. W. B. Yeats and Lady Gregory stage it at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. Shaw appears as a witness before the Joint Select Committee of the House of Lords and the House of Commons on Stage Plays (Censorship).
1911 Shaw joins the managing council of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. His strong support of RADA’s programs will include bequeathing RADA a third of his royalties. Shaw writes an introduction for the Waverley edition of Dickens’s HardTimes.
1913 Pygmalionis first performed.
1914 Beginning of the First World War. Shaw publishes CommonSenseAbouttheWar.
1916 Easter Rising in Dublin against British rule of Ireland.
1917 The Russian Revolution overthrows the imperialist government and installs a communist government under Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. The United States joins the war against Germany. On 17 July Czar Nicholas II and his family are executed.
1918 Representation of the People Act gives the vote to all men over twenty-one, and to women over thirty if they meet certain qualifications (e.g., property owners, university graduates). End of the First World War.
1920 HeartbreakHouseis first performed. Shaw completes BacktoMethuselah, a five-play cycle on evolutionary themes. League of Nations formed.
1921 The Irish Free State gains independence from Britain. Shaw writes the preface to Immaturity.
1922 Joseph Stalin becomes general secretary of the Communist Party Central Committee. Benito Mussolini becomes Italian prime minister.
1923 SaintJoanis first performed, with music written by Shaw.
1924 Ramsay MacDonald becomes the first Labour prime minister, in a Labour-Liberal coalition government.
1925 Adolf Hitler publishes MeinKampf[MyStruggle].
1926 General strike in Great Britain, 4–13 May. Shaw is awarded the 1925 Nobel Prize for Literature.
1928 Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act gives the vote to all women over twenty-one. Shaw publishes TheIntelligentWoman’sGuidetoSocialism andCapitalism. TheAppleCartis first performed.
1929 The Wall Street Crash, 28–29 October, which signalled the beginning of the Great Depression. Shaw speaks as a delegate to the third International Congress of the World League for Sexual Reform. Sir Barry Jackson establishes the Malvern Festival, dedicated to Shaw’s plays.
1931 Shaw visits Russia. He celebrates his seventy-fifth birthday on 26 July in Moscow’s Concert Hall of Nobles with two thousand guests. He meets Stalin on 29 July.
1932 Unemployment reaches 3.5 million in Great Britain. South Wales and the industrial north experience mass unemployment and poverty. TooTruetoBeGood receives its English première at the Malvern Festival.
1933 Shaw makes his first visit to the United States. He speaks to an audience of thirty-five hundred at the Metropolitan Opera House (11 April). Hitler becomes German chancellor.
1934 TheSixofCalaisis first performed.
1936 Shaw makes his second (and last) visit to the United States. TheMillionairessis first performed.
1938 Genevais first performed. Shaw rejects a proposal from producer Gabriel Pascal for a musical version of Pygmalion.
1939 Beginning of the Second World War.
1941 The United States enters the Second World War.
1945 End of the Second World War. United Nations formed. The UK Labour Party wins its first majority government. Clement Attlee becomes prime minister. His government implements an extensive nationalization program of British industry and services.
1947 Discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in Qumran Caves, West Bank.
1948 World Council of Churches founded in Amsterdam.
1950 Shaw publishes his last book review in TheObserver (26 March). He dies in Ayot St Lawrence, Hertfordshire (2 November).
A Note on the Text
Sources for the selections of Shaw’s writings on religion are given in the heading for each selection. Full bibliographical details for the sources, when not included in the heading, are provided in Sources and Further Reading, where secondary sources on Shaw’s religious writings are also listed. Shaw’s original spelling and punctuation have been retained. All ellipses inserted in the text are editorial. Brief explanatory notes are included in square brackets. In cases where there are multiple references to the same person or event, the note is given only for the first reference.
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The “vial of wrath” was empty My father looked at me—looked uglier than I had ever seen him look before. He held it over the glass, and inverted it. My work had been thoroughly accomplished, and hardly a drop of the fiery fluid answered the summons to appear. My father looked at me again. His lips were compressed, and his eyes snapped with anger.
“All gone—is it?” laughed the sheriff. “Well, no matter; I can get along without it.”
“We’ll take some at the bar,” said my father, as the bell rang to “slow” her
When the boat was fast to the wharf, they went to the bar and drank together. Somehow, it seemed to me that all my calculations were failing on that day; but still I hoped to accomplish something by the deed I had done. Mr. Mortimer went on shore, and my father returned to the engine-room. I hoped he would be satisfied with the dram he had taken, and that I should escape the consequences of his anger. The bell rang, and the boat started again.
“Wolf, did you empty that bottle?” asked my father, sternly.
“Yes, sir, I did,” I replied, gently, but firmly.
“What did you do that for?”
“I thought it was best not to have the liquor here,” I answered, with no little trepidation.
“Best!” exclaimed he. “Who made you a keeper over me?”
I did not dare to say anything. I held my peace, resolved to endure the storm in silence, lest some disrespectful word should escape my lips. My father was very angry, and I feared that, under the influence of the liquor, he would do violence to me; but he did not.
“Get away from here! Don’t let me see you around me any longer,” said he, at last, when he found that I was not disposed to explain my conduct, or to cast any reproaches upon him.
I went to the forward deck, and seated myself on the rail at the bow
CHAPTER VIII.
THE DUMMY ENGINE.
My father and I had always been on the best of terms. He was very considerate to me, and used to talk with me a great deal; indeed, he treated me in such a way that I had very little reason to think I was a boy. He discussed his plans with me, and often asked my advice, just as though I had been a man of mature judgment. He was angry with me now, almost for the first time in my remembrance; certainly he had never before been so highly exasperated with me. But I consoled myself with the reflection that he was partially intoxicated, and that, when the fumes of the whiskey had worked off, he would be as kind and gentle to me as ever.
Perhaps it was wrong for me to empty the bottle; but, as I can never know what would have happened if I had not done so, I am content with simply believing that I did it for the best. He was in charge of the engine. There were fifty precious lives on the boat. My father had the reputation of being a very steady and reliable man. If he had been a little noisy and turbulent at Ucayga, the shock of losing his money had wrought a sudden and wonderful change in his manner, so that few, if any, had noticed him. After the steamer started, I alone was aware of his condition; I alone knew of his resuming his cups; and I alone knew that, left to himself, he would soon be intoxicated, and incapable of managing the engine. I could not wish that I had not emptied the bottle, even while I suffered intensely under the consciousness of his displeasure.
While I was thinking of the wrath of my father, and of the consequences which might follow the loss of the money, the steamer approached Middleport, which was opposite Centreport, where we lived. My attention was immediately attracted by a singular-looking object on the canal boat at the wharf. My thoughts were partially diverted for a time from the painful circumstances of our family affairs, and I gazed with interest at the strange object. It looked like an immense omnibus, only it had a smoke-stack passing through the
roof at one end. I had never seen such a thing before, and I did not know what to make of it.
“Ah, the dummy has arrived,” said a Middleport passenger, who had come forward to look at the carriage.
“The what, sir?” I asked.
“The dummy.”
“What’s a dummy?” I inquired; for, with all my study of steamengines, I had never heard of one.
“It’s a railroad car with an engine in one end of it,” replied the gentleman; and by this time I could make out the form of the thing. “It is for the Lake Shore Railroad. I suppose you have heard that the students of the Toppleton Institute are building a railroad on the shore of the lake.”
“Yes, sir, I have heard of it.”
“This dummy was built to run on a horse railroad in Philadelphia; but though they call it a dummy, it made so much noise, and frightened so many horses, they could not use it in the streets. Major Toppleton saw it, and bought it cheap, for the students, in order to get a little ahead of the Wimpleton Institute, on the other side of the lake.”
As the boat approached the wharf, I examined the dummy very carefully. It was a railway carriage, similar to those used on street roads, having an engine in one end to propel it. It would be a rare plaything for the Toppletonians, and I envied them the possession of such a prize. I knew all about the Lake Shore Railroad, and many a pang of jealousy had it caused the Wimpletonians, on our side of the lake; for a stupendous rivalry existed between the two Institutes, which were separated from each other by only a mile of fresh water.
Lake Ucayga is about forty-five miles long. At the foot of it was the town of the same name, connected with the great centres of travel by railroad. At the head of the lake was the large town of Hitaca. The average width of the lake was three miles; but near the middle—or, to be more accurate, twenty miles from Ucayga, and twenty-five from Hitaca—a point of land jutted out on the west side, so as to leave a passage only a mile in width. On this peninsula was located the town of Middleport, and directly opposite was Centreport.
Below these towns the country was level, while above them it was hilly, and even mountainous near the head of the lake. Middleport and Centreport were of very modern origin, so far as their social and commercial importance was concerned, and their growth and history were somewhat remarkable. They are located on the verge of the hilly region, and the scenery around them, without being grand or sublime, is very beautiful.
Hardly twenty years before my story opens, two gentlemen had come up to the lake to spend a week in hunting and fishing. They were fast friends, and each of them had made an immense fortune in the China trade. The narrow part of the lake—generally called “The Narrows”—attracted their attention on account of its picturesque scenery. They were delighted with the spot, and the result was that, on retiring from business, they fixed their residences here.
One of these gentlemen was Colonel Wimpleton, and the other was Major Toppleton. They had won their military titles in the same regiment of militia in their early life, and had clung together like brothers for many years. They built their elegant mansions on the banks of the lake, facing each other, and formerly gayly-painted barges were continually plying between them. Certainly their houses looked like palaces of enchantment, so elegantly were the grounds laid out, and so picturesque were the surroundings. In front of each, on the lake, was a wall of dressed stone, from the quarries in the neighborhood. From these walls, the grounds, covered with the richest green in summer, sloped gradually up to the houses. They were adorned with smooth walks and avenues, shaded with a variety of trees. Indeed, I think nothing more lovely was ever seen or imagined.
Major Toppleton, on the Middleport side, built a flour mill; the village began to grow, and soon became a place of considerable commercial importance. At the same time, Centreport increased in population and wealth, though not so rapidly as its neighbor on the other side of the lake. Both the gentlemen had sons; and they were alive to the importance of giving them a good education. This consideration induced them to discuss the propriety of establishing an academy, and both agreed that such an institution was desirable, especially as there was not one of high standing within fifty miles of
the place. Then the difficult and delicate question of the location of the proposed academy came up for settlement. Each of them wanted it on his side of the lake; and on this rock the two friends, who had been almost brothers for forty years, split; and the warmth of their former friendship seemed to be the gauge of their present enmity.
The feud waxed fierce and bitter; and henceforth Middleport and Centreport, which had always been twin sisters, were savage foes. The major built a lofty edifice and called it the Toppleton Institute. The colonel, not to be thwarted or outdone, built another on a grander scale, and called it the Wimpleton Institute. Everything that could add to the efficiency and the popularity of the two institutions was liberally supplied; and, as competition is the life of trade, as well in literary as in commercial affairs, both thrived splendidly. All the principal cities and towns of the Union were represented among the students. The patron millionnaire of each, with his principal and teachers, labored and studied to devise some new schemes which would add to the popularity of his institution. Military drill, gymnastics, games, boating, English, French, and German systems were introduced, and dispensed with as fresher novelties were presented.
The rival academies numbered about a hundred students each, and neither seemed to obtain any permanent advantage over the other. “Like master like man;” and, as the major and the colonel quarrelled, the pupils could hardly help following their illustrious example; so that it was fortunate a mile of deep water lay between the two.
The rivalry of the millionnaires was not confined to the schools; it extended to the towns themselves. Colonel Wimpleton built a flour mill on the Centreport side, and fought boldly and cunningly for the commercial salvation of his side of the lake. If a bank, an insurance company, or a sawmill was established in Middleport, another immediately appeared in Centreport; and the converse of the proposition was equally true.
In the midst of this rivalry the Toppleton Institute was vivified by a new idea. The mania for building railroads which pervaded the Northern States invaded the quiet haunts of learning. Many of the students were the sons of prominent railroad men, and Major
Toppleton hit upon the magnificent scheme of giving the young gentlemen a railroad education. A company had been organized; certificates of stocks and bonds—of which the munificent patron of the institution was the largest holder—were issued. A president, directors, treasurer, and clerk were elected; superintendents, trackmasters, baggage-masters, conductors, brakemen, engineers, firemen, switch-tenders, and other officials were duly appointed. At first the railroad was to be an imaginary concern; but the wealthy patron was not content to have the business done on paper only. He purchased sleepers and rails, and the students had actually built five miles of road on the level border of the lake. The dummy engine had been bought, and had been sent by railroad to the head of the lake, and thence to Middleport by a canal boat.
This splendid project of the Toppletonians was viewed with consternation by the Wimpletonians. I was warmly interested in the scheme, and watched its progress with the deepest interest. The dummy was a miracle to me, and I regarded it with the most intense delight. All the Toppletonians, assisted by a few men, were on the shore, busy as bees in transferring the machine to the wharf. Planks had been laid down on which to roll it from the boat, and rigging manned by the students was attached to it, by which it was to be hauled on shore.
The steamer was to make a landing alongside the canal boat. I stood at the bow watching the operation of moving the dummy. They had rolled it two or three feet up the skids; but “too many cooks spoil the broth.” A rope broke, the machine slipped back, and, canting the boat by its impetus, the thing rolled off, with a tremendous splash, into the lake. The steamer backed just in season to avoid smashing it into a hopeless wreck.
If Centreport had been there it would have rejoiced exceedingly at this mishap.
THE ACCIDENT TO THE DUMMY.—Page 93.
CHAPTER IX.
TOPPLETONIANS AND WIMPLETONIANS.
Middleport had a terrible fall in the unfortunate slip of the dummy engine; and if any Wimpletonians, on the other side of the lake, witnessed the catastrophe, I am afraid they were ill-natured enough to “crow” over it; for to have seen the thing hissing up and down on the opposite shore would have been a sore trial to them. For the present, at least, it was safe on the bottom of the lake, though, as the water was only six or eight feet deep, the machine would doubtless be saved in the end.
Though I belonged to Centreport, and was a graduate of the Wimpleton Institute, I could not find it in my heart to rejoice at the disaster which had befallen the Toppletonians. I was too much interested in the dummy to cherish any ill-will towards the machine or its owners. I wanted to see it work, and I could not help envying the engineer who was to enjoy the superlative happiness of running it. Such a position would have suited me, and I was sorry the railroad idea had not originated on our side of the lake. I wondered what Colonel Wimpleton would bring forward to offset this novelty of his rival, not doubting that he would make a desperate effort to outdo the major.
The accident filled the Toppletonians with dismay. They had been yelling with excitement and delight while laboring at the skids and rigging; but now they were aghast and silent. The Ruoara backed away from the submerged machine, and made her landing at the end of the pier. The dummy rested upright upon the bottom of the lake, with its roof well out of the water. I hardly took my eyes off of it while we were at the wharf, and I only wished the task of putting it on the track of the Lake Shore Railroad had fallen on me; for I thought I saw a plan by which it could be easily accomplished.
While the steamer was waiting I stepped upon the wharf, and mingled with the crowd of dismayed Toppletonians, who were gazing at the apparent wreck of all their hopes. I was acquainted with a few
of them; but they regarded me with a feeling of jealousy and hatred which I am happy to state that I did not share with them.
“Our pipe is out,” said Tommy Toppleton, the only son of the major. “It’s too confounded bad! I meant to have a ride in that car by to-morrow.”
“It’s not so bad as it might be,” I ventured to remark.
“Who are you?” snapped Tommy, when he recognized me as a Centreporter.
“I belong on the other side, I know; but I was really sorry to see the thing go overboard,” I added, gently enough to disarm the wrath of the patron’s son.
“I think the Wimpleton fellows will feel good over this,” continued Tommy, who, if he had not been crestfallen at the misfortune of his clan, would have been impudent and overbearing to a plebeian like me.
“I suppose they will feel good; but if I were one of your fellows I would not let them enjoy it a great while. I would have it out of the water and get up steam before I slept upon it,” I answered.
“What would you do?” asked Tommy curiously.
“I would get it out of the water in double-quick time, and then put her through by daylight, even if it took me all night.”
“You are a brick, Wolf; and I am rather sorry you live on the other side of the lake,” laughed the scion of the Middleport house. “Do you think you could get her out of the water?”
“I know I could.”
“How would you do it?”
“I haven’t time to explain it now,” I replied, edging towards the steamer.
“I say, Wolf, people think you know all about an engine, and can run one as well as a man,” continued Tommy, following me to the boat.
“I ran a locomotive ten miles to-day.”
“Did you, though?”
“I did—all alone.”
“Our fellows don’t want a man for an engineer on the Lake Shore Railroad; some of them were talking about having you to run the dummy for us.”
“I am much obliged to them for thinking of me.”
“It’s too bad you live on the other side.”
I thought so too, as the bell of the Ruoara rang, and I stepped on board of her. To do anything for the enemy on the Middleport side would be to give mortal offence to Colonel Wimpleton, his hopeful son, and all the students of the Institute in Centreport; and it was quite out of the question for me to think of a position on the footboard of the dummy. I would have given anything to join the Toppletonians, against whom I had now no spite, and take part in the operations of the new railroad; and I regarded it as a very great misfortune that the rivalry between the two places prevented me from doing so.
The Ruoara left the wharf, and stood across the lake towards Centreport. As she receded from the shore, I saw Tommy talking to his father, and pointing to the boat, as though I were the subject of the conversation. I do not know what either of them said; but the young gentleman doubtless told the patron of the Toppletonians that I considered myself able to extricate the dummy from her present position. I was a very modest young man at the time of which I write; but years have enabled me, in some measure, to conquer the feeling, and I may now say that I had a splendid reputation as an engineer, for a boy. I do not know that I was regarded as exactly a prodigy, but even men of ability treated me with great kindness and consideration on account of my proficiency in matters relating to machinery. It seemed quite possible, therefore, that Major Toppleton did not regard my suggestion of a plan to extricate the dummy as a mere boyish boast.
Whether he did or did not, I was too much oppressed by my father’s misfortunes to think of the dummy after it was out of sight. I walked aft, passing through the gangway, where I could see my unfortunate parent. He looked stern and forbidding, and, when I paused at the door, he told me I need not stop there. I did not think he had been drinking again, and I felt sure that he would not long be angry. It made me very sad to think that he was offended with me; but, more than this, I dreaded lest he should fall back into his old habits, and become a drunkard.
As the steamer approached the Centreport landing, I was startled by three rousing cheers. On the lawn, which faced the river in front of the Wimpleton Institute, were assembled all the students. Two or three of them were looking through field glasses to the opposite shore. They had just discovered the nature of the disaster to the dummy, and they expressed their satisfaction in the cheers which I heard. It was mean and cowardly to rejoice in the misfortunes of others, even if they were enemies; but as their elders expressed themselves in this manner, nothing better could be expected of them.
I went ashore when the boat was made fast. I noticed that several people looked sharply at me, and some of them appeared to make remarks about me, as I passed through the crowd up the wharf; but so completely had my thoughts been absorbed by the affairs of my father, that I had quite forgotten my altercation with Mr. Waddie Wimpleton, and I did not connect the sharp looks and the suppressed remarks bestowed upon me with that circumstance. I had the young gentleman’s revolver in my pocket; but I had ceased to feel its weight or to think of it. I walked up the wharf, and hastened to the cottage of my father.
“Why, Wolfert! What have you been doing?” exclaimed my mother, as I entered the kitchen, where she was at work.
“Nothing wrong, I hope, mother,” I replied; and I am sure my long face and sad demeanor were not without their effect upon her.
“They are telling awful stories about you, Wolfert,” she added.
“Who are?”
“Everybody. What have you been doing?”
“I haven’t done anything, mother.”
“Didn’t you take the powder from the tool-house at the quarry, and blow up that canal boat?” gasped she, horrified that I should be even accused of such wickedness.
“No, mother; I did not. Who says I did?”
“Everybody is saying so. We all know that the canal boat was blown up; and they say you ran away before the people came.”
I told my mother the whole truth in regard to the canal boat, and she believed me.
“Waddie Wimpleton says you did it, Wolfert,” added she.
“I did not do it, and did not know anything about it till the explosion took place.”
“They all say you must have done it. Waddie don’t deny that he had a hand in it; but he says you planned the whole thing, and he gave you his revolver for doing it.”
“There is not a word of truth in it, mother.”
“The quarrymen saw you and Waddie near the mill wharf, just before the explosion. It was not till they had told their story that Waddie acknowledged he had anything to do with it. He says it was done by pulling a string; and everybody believes that boy hadn’t gumption enough to blow up the canal boat without blowing himself up with it. They say the thing was well done, and therefore you must have done it.”
This was flattering to my pride, disagreeable as the consequences threatened to be. People believed I was guilty because I had the reputation of being skilful in mechanical contrivances! But I was not anxious to rob Waddie of any of his honors in this affair.
“I have not done anything wrong, mother; and I am willing to take the consequences, whatever they are. I wish this was the only thing we had to fear,” I said, dreading the effect upon her of the intelligence I had to communicate in regard to my father.
“Why, what else have we to fear?” asked she, with an expression of alarm. “Where is your father?”
“He has gone up to Hitaca in the steamer.”
“What has he gone up there for?”
“He is in charge of the engine of the Ruoara.”
“Where is Christy Holgate?”
“He has robbed a man of his money, and run away.”
“Christy?”
“Yes, mother; and that isn’t the worst of it, either.”
“Why, what do you mean, Wolfert?”
“Father was the man whom he robbed.”
“Why, Wolfert!” ejaculated my mother, as pale as death.
“It is just as I say, mother; and it isn’t the worst of it, either.”
“Oh, dear! What else has happened?” she demanded, in a hoarse whisper.
“Father has taken to drinking again,” I replied; and, no longer able to restrain my emotions, I burst into tears.
“Merciful Heaven! That is worse than all the rest!” exclaimed she, covering her face with her apron, and weeping bitterly with me.
CHAPTER X.
COLONEL WIMPLETON AND SON.
My mother wept as she thought of the past, and dreaded the future. It would have been comparatively easy to endure the loss of the twenty-four hundred dollars; but it was intolerable to think of the misery of again being a drunkard’s wife. All else was as nothing to her beside this awful prospect. My father had struggled with his besetting and his besotting sin for five years, and with hardly an exception had always been the conqueror. During this period he had prospered in his worldly affairs, and till this day of disaster the future seemed to be secure to him.
My mother told me I had done right in emptying the bottle, and assured me that my father would not long cherish his anger. She knew not what to do in order to turn the tide which had set against us. If the sheriff succeeded in arresting Christy, and securing the money he had stolen, the effect upon my father would be good. If the money was lost, we feared that father would be lost with it.
While we were talking about the sad prospect before us, an imperative knock was heard at the front door—a summons so loud and stately that we could hardly fail to identify the person even before we saw his face. My mother wiped away her bitter tears, and hastened to the door.
“Has your son come home?” demanded Colonel Wimpleton, in his abrupt and offensive manner, when he spoke to his social inferiors, as he regarded them.
“Yes, sir, he has,” replied my mother, with fear and trembling before the magnate of Centreport.
Without further ceremony, or any ceremony,—for he had used none,—he stalked into the kitchen where I sat. He was followed by his hopeful scion, who looked quite as magnificent as his stately father.
“So you have come home, you young villain!” said the colonel, fixing a savage gaze upon me.
“I have come home; but I am not a villain, sir,” I replied, with what dignity I could command.
“Don’t contradict me. I say you are a villain.”
“Your saying so don’t make it so,” I answered, desperately; for I was goaded almost to despair by the misfortunes of the day; and though at any other time I should have been as meek as a nursing dove, I felt like defending myself from the charges he was about to make.
“Don’t be impudent to me, young man,” scowled he. “You know me, and you know what I am.”
“I know what you are,” I added, significantly; and I was astonished at my own boldness.
He looked at me savagely, apparently trying to determine what construction to put upon my remark. Waddie stood at his side, quite self-possessed, considering the wicked deed he had done. His presence reminded me of the revolver I had in my pocket, and I took it out and presented it to him.
“Here is your revolver, Waddie. I did not intend to keep it, when I took it,” said I.
“I don’t want it. It is yours now,” replied he, declining to take the weapon. “I gave it to you for the job you did for me, and I am not going to back out now.”
“Take it, Waddie,” interposed his father. “Such a trade is not legal or binding.”
“I’m not going to take it,” replied the hopeful, stoutly. “It was a fair trade, and it would not be honorable for me to back out.”
“Give it to me, then,” added the colonel.
I gave it to him, and he put it in his pocket, in spite of the protest of Waddie.
“Now, Wolf, I want you to tell me the truth,” continued Colonel Wimpleton.
“I will do so, sir.”
“You persuaded my boy to blow up that canal boat?”
“No, sir. I did not.”
“I didn’t say he persuaded me to do it, father,” interrupted the son.
“You wouldn’t have done such a thing as that unless somebody put you up to it, Waddie,” protested the fond father, who had been
obliged to make the same statement fifty times before, and remained obstinately incredulous in regard to his son’s capacity to do mischief up to the present time.
“Yes, I would, father; and I am only sorry the skipper of the canal boat was not on board when she went up. Didn’t I say he insulted me? Didn’t I tell you he shook me, kicked me, cuffed me, and then chucked me on the wharf, as though I had been a dead cat? When a man insults me, he has to pay for it,” said Waddie, shaking his head to emphasize his strong declarations.
“Yes; and I shall have to pay for it too,” muttered the colonel, who felt very much as the man did who had to pay his wife’s fine after he had prosecuted her for an assault upon himself.
“No matter for that; I am revenged,” added Waddie, coolly. “I only said that Wolf showed me how to do it, and pulled the string when all was ready.”
“That’s enough,” replied the father.
I understood the magnate of Centreport well enough to comprehend his position. He was quite willing to pay a couple of thousand dollars for the destruction of the canal boat; but he was very loath to have the Centreporters believe, what was literally the truth, that Waddie Wimpleton was the worst and most evil-disposed boy in the whole town. While he did not attempt to discipline and control his vicious heir, he was exceedingly jealous of the youth’s reputation. He wished to have me confess that I had had a finger in this pie of mischief. My character stood high in town, for I had tried to behave like a gentleman on all occasions. If I shared the blame with the colonel’s hopeful, he was willing to pay all costs and damages. I really believe, if I could have assumed the entire odium of the wicked deed, the magnate would have been willing to pay for the boat, and give me a thousand dollars besides. In fact, I knew of one instance in which a boy of bad habits had been indirectly paid for taking upon his own shoulders the blame that belonged upon Waddie’s.
“I had nothing at all to do with blowing up the canal boat, Colonel Wimpleton,” I replied. “I knew nothing about it till the explosion took place.”
“You deny it—do you?” demanded the magnate, sharply.
“I do, sir; I had nothing to do with it.”
“How dare you lie to me? As Waddie was concerned in the affair, I don’t mind paying for the boat, and I suppose that will be the end of the scrape; but I know my boy wouldn’t do such a thing without some help.”
“I didn’t help him,” I protested, warmly.
“Didn’t you pull the string?” demanded Waddie, with the most unblushing effrontery.
“No, I did not.”
“Didn’t you have hold of the string when the boat went up?” persisted the young villain.
“I did, but”—
“There, father, he owns up to all I ask him to confess,” interposed Waddie.
“I own up to nothing,” I replied, indignantly. “I say, again, I had nothing to do with the explosion, and knew nothing about it till the boat blew up.”
“What do you mean, you young rascal?” stormed the colonel. “One moment you say you had hold of the string, and the next that you knew nothing about it.”
“If you wish me to explain the matter, I will do so; if not, I won’t,” I added, disgusted with the evident intention of the magnate to convict me, whether guilty or not.
“Will you confess that you had a hand in the mischief?”
“No, I will not.”
“But, you young rascal”—
“I am not a rascal, Colonel Wimpleton. If either of us is a rascal, you are the one, not I,” I continued, goaded to desperation by his injustice.
“What!” gasped the great man, confounded at my boldness.
“I say just what I mean. Waddie knows, as well as I do, that I had nothing to do with blowing up the canal boat, and if he was a decent fellow he would say so.”
“Don’t be rash, Wolfert,” interposed my mother, alarmed at my temerity.
“I am not afraid of them, mother.”
“Do you mean to say I’m not a decent fellow?” howled Waddie.
