_Lucas._ Good morning, Mr. Pilcher.

_Pilcher._ [_Shaking hands._] Good morning.

_Lucas._ Rattling good sermon you gave us last night.

_Pilcher._ I'm glad you thought it worth coming so far to hear.

_Lucas._ Not at all. Jolly well worth coming for, eh, Mrs. Sturgess?

[_With a sly little look and shake of the head at_ RENIE.

_Renie._ I thoroughly enjoyed it!

_Pilcher._ [_A little surprised._] Enjoyed it! Now I meant to make you all very uncomfortable!

_Dolly._ Oh, you gave us a good shaking up, and we deserved it! I don't think you've met Professor Sturgess?

_Pilcher._ [_Advancing to_ PROFESSOR.] No, but I've read his book, "Man, the Automaton."

_Prof._ [_Bowing._] Not with disapproval, I trust?

_Pilcher._ [_Shaking hands very cordially._] With the most profound disapproval, with boundless, uncompromising dissent and antagonism!

_Prof._ I'm sorry!

_Pilcher._ Why, you deny that man has any vestige of free will.

_Prof._ Certainly. The longer I live, the more I'm convinced that free will is a purely subjective illusion.

_Dolly._ Do you mean that when I will to do a certain thing I can't do it? Oh, that's absurd. For instance, I will to go and touch that chair!

[_She goes and touches it._] There! [_Triumphantly._] I've done it! That shows I've got free will. [_The_ PROFESSOR _shakes his head._] Well, then how did I do it?

_Prof._ I affirm that your willing to touch that chair or not to touch it, your actual touching it, or not touching it; your possession or non-possession of a criminal impulse----

_Dolly._ I haven't any criminal impulses----

_Prof._ [_Shakes his head and goes on._] Your yielding to that criminal impulse or your not yielding to it--all these states of consciousness are entirely dependent upon the condition, quant.i.ty and arrangement of certain atoms in the gray matter of your brain. You think, you will, you act according as that gray matter works. You did not cause or make that condition of the atoms of your gray matter, therefore you are not responsible for thinking or acting in this way or that, seeing that your thoughts, and your actions, and that direction of your impulses which you call your will, are all precisely determined and regulated by the condition and arrangement of these minute atoms of your gray matter!

_Dolly._ [_Has at first listened with great attention, but has grown bewildered as the_ PROFESSOR _goes on._] I don't care anything about my gray matter! I've quite made up my mind I won't have any more bills!

_Pilcher._ [_Turning to_ RENIE.] Does Mrs. Sturgess agree with the Professor's doctrine?

_Renie._ No, indeed! To say that we're mere machines--it's horrid.

_Prof._ The question is not whether it's horrid, but whether it's true.

_Pilcher._ What do you think, Mr. Barron?

_Matt._ It's a very nutty and knotty problem. I'm watching to see Dolly and Harry solve it!

_Dolly._ See us solve it! How?

_Matt._ You and Harry heard a most thrilling, soul-stirring sermon last night.

_Pilcher._ You had good hearsay accounts of my sermon?

_Matt._ Excellent! I should have heard it myself, but I've reached an age when it would be dangerous to give up any of my old and cherished bad habits. So in place of going to church and selfishly reforming myself, I shall have to be content with watching Dolly and Harry reform themselves.

_Dolly._ Don't take any notice of him, Mr. Pilcher, he's the most cynical, hardened reprobate! I have to blush for him a hundred times a day.

[RENIE _strolls casually into conservatory by lower door._ LUCAS _casually follows her._

_Matt._ And in order to settle once and for all this vexed question of free will and moral responsibility, I'll bet you, Harry, a simple fiver, and I'll bet you Dolly, a new Parisian hat, and half a dozen pairs of gloves that you won't live up to your good resolutions, and that on next New Year's Day you'll neither of you be one ha'penny the better for all the wise counsels Mr. Pilcher gave you last night.

_Harry._ A fiver! Done!

_Dolly._ I'll take you, too! In fact, I'll double it; two new Parisian hats, and a dozen pairs of gloves!

_Matt._ Done, my dear!

_Pilcher._ I hope I sha'n't be accused of talking shop if I venture to recall that betting was one of the bad habits I especially warned my congregation against, last night!

_Harry._ By Jove, yes--I'd forgotten all about that! Of course, if you wish us to cry off----

_Pilcher._ Well, not exactly. I might perhaps suggest an alternative plan which was tried with great success in my late parish----

_Dolly._ What was that?

_Pilcher._ A very capital good fellow--an auctioneer and land surveyor, my churchwarden in fact, by name Jobling--found that in spite of constant good resolutions, certain small vices were gradually creeping upon him. There was an occasional outburst of temper to his clerks, an occasional half gla.s.s too much; and on one lamentable market day, he actually discovered himself using bad language to Mrs. Jobling----

_Dolly._ [_Looking at_ HARRY.] Oh! Ah!

_Matt._ Jobling's gray matter can't have been in good working order.

_Pilcher._ We corrected that! We got his gray matter under control.

_Dolly._ How?

_Pilcher._ My Christmas Blanket Club happened to be on the road to bankruptcy. By the way, our Blanket Club here is in low water. Well, I gave Jobling a small box with a hole at the top sufficiently large to admit half a crown. And I suggested that whenever he was betrayed into one of these little slips, he should fine himself for the benefit of my Blanket Club----

_Harry._ Good business! Dolly, where's that collecting-box they sent us from the Hospital for Incurables?

_Dolly._ In the cupboard in the next room.

_Harry._ Right-o! No time like the present! [_Exit._]

_Matt._ And how did you get out of this dilemma?