DOYLE. What difference does that make? What would you say if I
proposed a visit to YOUR father?

BROADBENT [with filial rectitude]. I always made a point of going
to see my father regularly until his mind gave way.

DOYLE [concerned]. Has he gone mad? You never told me.

BROADBENT. He has joined the Tariff Reform League. He would never
have done that if his mind had not been weakened. [Beginning to
declaim] He has fallen a victim to the arts of a political
charlatan who--

DOYLE [interrupting him]. You mean that you keep clear of your
father because he differs from you about Free Trade, and you
don't want to quarrel with him. Well, think of me and my father!
He's a Nationalist and a Separatist. I'm a metallurgical chemist
turned civil engineer. Now whatever else metallurgical chemistry
may be, it's not national. It's international. And my business
and yours as civil engineers is to join countries, not to
separate them. The one real political conviction that our
business has rubbed into us is that frontiers are hindrances and
flags confounded nuisances.

BROADBENT [still smarting under Mr Chamberlain's economic
heresy]. Only when there is a protective tariff--

DOYLE [firmly] Now look here, Tom: you want to get in a speech on
Free Trade; and you're not going to do it: I won't stand it. My
father wants to make St George's Channel a frontier and hoist a