PRATTLE. (seeing paper and ink).  But what are you doing?

DE REVES.  Writing.

PRATTLE.  Writing?  I didn’t know you wrote.

DE REVES.  Yes, I’ve taken to it rather.

PRATTLE.  I say—­writing’s no good.  What do you write?

DE REVES.  Oh, poetry.

PRATTLE.  Poetry?  Good Lord!

DE REVES.  Yes, that sort of thing, you know.

PRATTLE.  Good Lord!  Do you make any money by it?

DE REVES.  No.  Hardly any.

PRATTLE.  I say—­why don’t you chuck it?

DE REVES.  Oh, I don’t know.  Some people seem to like my stuff, rather.  That’s why I go on.

PRATTLE.  I’d chuck it if there’s no money in it.

DE REVES.  Ah, but then it’s hardly in your line, is it?  You’d hardly approve of poetry if there was money in it.

PRATTLE.  Oh, I don’t say that.  If I could make as much by poetry as I can by betting I don’t say I wouldn’t try the poetry touch, only—­

DE REVES.  Only what?

PRATTLE.  Oh, I don’t know.  Only there seems more sense in betting, somehow.

DE REVES.  Well, yes.  I suppose it’s easier to tell what an earthly horse is going to do, than to tell what Pegasus—­

PRATTLE.  What’s Pegasus?

DE REVES.  Oh, the winged horse of poets.

PRATTLE.  I say!  You don’t believe in a winged horse, do you?

DE REVES.  In our trade we believe in all fabulous things.  They all represent some large truth to turn us.  An emblem like Pegasus is as real a thing to a poet as a Derby winner would be to you.

PRATTLE.  I say. (Give me a cigarette.  Thanks.) What?  Then you’d believe in nymphs and fauns, and Pan, and all those kind of birds?

DE REVES.  Yes.  Yes.  In all of them.

PRATTLE.  Good Lord!

DE REVES.  You believe in the Lord Mayor of London, don’t you?

PRATTLE.  Yes, of course; but what has—­

DE REVES.  Four million people or so made him Lord Mayor, didn’t they?  And he represents to them the wealth and dignity and tradition of—­

PRATTLE.  Yes; but, I say, what has all this—­

DE REVES.  Well, he stands for an idea to them, and they made him
Lord Mayor, and so he is one....

PRATTLE.  Well, of course he is.

DE REVES.  In the same way Pan has been made what he is by millions; by millions to whom he represents world-old traditions.

PRATTLE. (rising from his chair and stepping backwards, laughing and looking at the POET in a kind of assumed wonder).  I say....  I say....  You old heathen ... but Good Lord....

(He bumps into the high screen behind, pushing it back a little.)

DE REVES.  Look out!  Look out!

PRATTLE.  What?  What’s the matter?

DE REVES.  The screen!

PRATTLE.  Oh, sorry, yes.  I’ll put it right.