George Bernard Shaw a penn State Electronic Classics Series Publication

chair; and resigns himself to allow her to lead the conversation].
You were saying—?
ELLIE
. Was I? I forget. Tell me. Do you like this part of the
country? I heard you ask Mr Hushabye at dinner whether
there are any nice houses to let down here.
MANGAN
. I like the place. The air suits me. I shouldn’t be
surprised if I settled down here.
ELLIE
. Nothing would please me better. The air suits me
too. And I want to be near Hesione.
MANGAN 
[with growing uneasiness]. The air may suit us;
but the question is, should we suit one another? Have you
thought about that?
ELLIE
. Mr Mangan, we must be sensible, mustn’t we? It’s
no use pretending that we are Romeo and Juliet. But we can
get on very well together if we choose to make the best of it.
Your kindness of heart will make it easy for me.
MANGAN 
[leaning forward, with the beginning of something
like deliberate unpleasantness in his voice]. Kindness of heart,
eh? I ruined your father, didn’t I?
ELLIE
. Oh, not intentionally.
MANGAN
. Yes I did. Ruined him on purpose.
ELLIE
. On purpose!
MANGAN
. Not out of ill-nature, you know. And you’ll
admit that I kept a job for him when I had finished with
him. But business is business; and I ruined him as a matter
of business.
ELLIE
. I don’t understand how that can be. Are you trying
to make me feel that I need not be grateful to you, so that I
may choose freely?
MANGAN 
[rising aggressively]. No. I mean what I say.
ELLIE
. But how could it possibly do you any good to ruin
my father? The money he lost was yours.
MANGAN 
[with a sour laugh]. Was mine! It is mine, Miss
Ellie, and all the money the other fellows lost too. [He shoves
his hands into his pockets and shows his teeth]. I just smoked
them out like a hive of bees. What do you say to that? A bit
of shock, eh?
ELLIE
. It would have been, this morning. Now! you can’t
think how little it matters. But it’s quite interesting. Only,
you must explain it to me. I don’t understand it. [Propping

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GB Shaw
her elbows on the drawingboard and her chin on her hands, she
composes herself to listen with a combination of conscious curi-
osity with unconscious contempt which provokes him to more
and more unpleasantness, and an attempt at patronage of her
ignorance].
MANGAN
. Of course you don’t understand: what do you
know about business? You just listen and learn. Your father’s
business was a new business; and I don’t start new businesses:
I let other fellows start them. They put all their money and
their friends’ money into starting them. They wear out their
souls and bodies trying to make a success of them. They’re
what you call enthusiasts. But the first dead lift of the thing
is too much for them; and they haven’t enough financial ex-
perience. In a year or so they have either to let the whole
show go bust, or sell out to a new lot of fellows for a few
deferred ordinary shares: that is, if they’re lucky enough to
get anything at all. As likely as not the very same thing hap-
pens to the new lot. They put in more money and a couple
of years’ more work; and then perhaps they have to sell out
to a third lot. If it’s really a big thing the third lot will have to
sell out too, and leave their work and their money behind
them. And that’s where the real business man comes in: where
I come in. But I’m cleverer than some: I don’t mind drop-
ping a little money to start the process. I took your father’s
measure. I saw that he had a sound idea, and that he would
work himself silly for it if he got the chance. I saw that he
was a child in business, and was dead certain to outrun his
expenses and be in too great a hurry to wait for his market. I
knew that the surest way to ruin a man who doesn’t know
how to handle money is to give him some. I explained my
idea to some friends in the city, and they found the money;
for I take no risks in ideas, even when they’re my own. Your
father and the friends that ventured their money with him
were no more to me than a heap of squeezed lemons. You’ve
been wasting your gratitude: my kind heart is all rot. I’m
sick of it. When I see your father beaming at me with his
moist, grateful eyes, regularly wallowing in gratitude, I some-
times feel I must tell him the truth or burst. What stops me
is that I know he wouldn’t believe me. He’d think it was my
modesty, as you did just now. He’d think anything rather
than the truth, which is that he’s a blamed fool, and I am a
man that knows how to take care of himself. [He throws him-