George Bernard Shaw a penn State Electronic Classics Series Publication

from an open window above. She raises herself indignantly in
the hammock]. Randall, you have not gone to bed. Have you
been listening? [The flute replies pertly]. How vulgar! Go to
bed instantly, Randall: how dare you? [The window is slammed
down. She subsides]. How can anyone care for such a crea-
ture!
MRS HUSHABYE
. Addy: do you think Ellie ought to marry
poor Alfred merely for his money?
MANGAN 
[much alarmed]. What’s that? Mrs Hushabye,
are my affairs to be discussed like this before everybody?
LADY UTTERWORD
. I don’t think Randall is listening
now.
MANGAN
. Everybody is listening. It isn’t right.

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118
Heartbreak House
MRS HUSHABYE
. But in the dark, what does it matter?
Ellie doesn’t mind. Do you, Ellie?
ELLIE
. Not in the least. What is your opinion, Lady
Utterword? You have so much good sense.
MANGAN
. But it isn’t right. It—[Mrs Hushabye puts her
hand on his mouth]. Oh, very well.
LADY UTTERWORD
. How much money have you, Mr.
Mangan?
MANGAN
. Really—No: I can’t stand this.
LADY UTTERWORD
. Nonsense, Mr Mangan! It all turns
on your income, doesn’t it?
MANGAN
. Well, if you come to that, how much money
has she?
ELLIE
. None.
LADY UTTERWORD
. You are answered, Mr Mangan. And
now, as you have made Miss Dunn throw her cards on the
table, you cannot refuse to show your own.
MRS HUSHABYE
. Come, Alf! out with it! How much?
MANGAN 
[baited out of all prudence]. Well, if you want to
know, I have no money and never had any.
MRS HUSHABYE
. Alfred, you mustn’t tell naughty stories.
MANGAN
. I’m not telling you stories. I’m telling you the
raw truth.
LADY UTTERWORD
. Then what do you live on, Mr
Mangan?
MANGAN
. Travelling expenses. And a trifle of commission.
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER
. What more have any of us but
travelling expenses for our life’s journey?
MRS HUSHABYE
. But you have factories and capital and
things?
MANGAN
. People think I have. People think I’m an indus-
trial Napoleon. That’s why Miss Ellie wants to marry me.
But I tell you I have nothing.
ELLIE
. Do you mean that the factories are like Marcus’s
tigers? That they don’t exist?
MANGAN
. They exist all right enough. But they’re not mine.

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GB Shaw
They belong to syndicates and shareholders and all sorts of
lazy good-for-nothing capitalists. I get money from such
people to start the factories. I find people like Miss Dunn’s
father to work them, and keep a tight hand so as to make
them pay. Of course I make them keep me going pretty well;
but it’s a dog’s life; and I don’t own anything.
MRS HUSHABYE
. Alfred, Alfred, you are making a poor
mouth of it to get out of marrying Ellie.
MANGAN
. I’m telling the truth about my money for the
first time in my life; and it’s the first time my word has ever
been doubted.
LADY UTTERWORD
. How sad! Why don’t you go in for
politics, Mr Mangan?
MANGAN
. Go in for politics! Where have you been living?
I am in politics.
LADY UTTERWORD
. I’m sure I beg your pardon. I never
heard of you.
MANGAN
. Let me tell you, Lady Utterword, that the Prime
Minister of this country asked me to join the Government
without even going through the nonsense of an election, as
the dictator of a great public department.
LADY UTTERWORD
. As a Conservative or a Liberal?
MANGAN
. No such nonsense. As a practical business man.
[They all burst out laughing]. What are you all laughing at?
MRS HUSHARYE
. Oh, Alfred, Alfred!
ELLIE
. You! who have to get my father to do everything for
you!
MRS HUSHABYE
. You! who are afraid of your own work-
men!
HECTOR
. You! with whom three women have been play-
ing cat and mouse all the evening!
LADY UTTERWORD
. You must have given an immense
sum to the party funds, Mr Mangan.
MANGAN
. Not a penny out of my own pocket. The syndi-
cate found the money: they knew how useful I should be to
them in the Government.
LADY UTTERWORD
. This is most interesting and unex-
pected, Mr Mangan. And what have your administrative
achievements been, so far?

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120
Heartbreak House
MANGAN
. Achievements? Well, I don’t know what you call
achievements; but I’ve jolly well put a stop to the games of
the other fellows in the other departments. Every man of
them thought he was going to save the country all by him-
self, and do me out of the credit and out of my chance of a
title. I took good care that if they wouldn’t let me do it they
shouldn’t do it themselves either. I may not know anything
about my own machinery; but I know how to stick a ramrod
into the other fellow’s. And now they all look the biggest
fools going.
HECTOR
. And in heaven’s name, what do you look like?
MANGAN
. I look like the fellow that was too clever for all
the others, don’t I? If that isn’t a triumph of practical busi-
ness, what is?
HECTOR
. Is this England, or is it a madhouse?
LADY UTTERWORD
. Do you expect to save the country,
Mr Mangan?
MANGAN
. Well, who else will? Will your Mr Randall save
it?
LADY UTTERWORD
. Randall the rotter! Certainly not.
MANGAN
. Will your brother-in-law save it with his mous-
tache and his fine talk?
HECTOR
. Yes, if they will let me.
MANGAN 
[sneering]. Ah! Will they let you?
HECTOR
. No. They prefer you.
MANGAN
. Very well then, as you’re in a world where I’m
appreciated and you’re not, you’d best be civil to me, hadn’t
you? Who else is there but me?
LADY UTTERWORD
. There is Hastings. Get rid of your ri-
diculous sham democracy; and give Hastings the necessary pow-
ers, and a good supply of bamboo to bring the British native to
his senses: he will save the country with the greatest ease.
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER
. It had better be lost. Any fool can
govern with a stick in his hand. I could govern that way. It is
not God’s way. The man is a numskull.
LADY UTTERWORD
. The man is worth all of you rolled
into one. What do you say, Miss Dunn?
ELLIE
. I think my father would do very well if people did
not put upon him and cheat him and despise him because

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GB Shaw
he is so good.
MANGAN 
[contemptuously]. I think I see Mazzini Dunn
getting into parliament or pushing his way into the Govern-
ment. We’ve not come to that yet, thank God! What do you
say, Mrs Hushabye?
MRS HUSHABYE
. Oh, I say it matters very little which of
you governs the country so long as we govern you.
HECTOR
. We? Who is we, pray?
MRS HUSHABYE
. The devil’s granddaughters, dear. The
lovely women.
HECTOR 
[raising his hands as before]. Fall, I say, and deliver
us from the lures of Satan!
ELLIE
. There seems to be nothing real in the world except
my father and Shakespeare. Marcus’s tigers are false; Mr
Mangan’s millions are false; there is nothing really strong
and true about Hesione but her beautiful black hair; and
Lady Utterword’s is too pretty to be real. The one thing that
was left to me was the Captain’s seventh degree of concen-
tration; and that turns out to be—
CAPTAIN SHOTOVER
. Rum.
LADY UTTERWORD 
[placidly]. A good deal of my hair is
quite genuine. The Duchess of Dithering offered me fifty
guineas for this [touching her forehead] under the impression
that it was a transformation; but it is all natural except the
color.
MANGAN 
[wildly]. Look here: I’m going to take off all my
clothes [he begins tearing off his coat].