PRATTLE. Wouldn't understand? Why, what have you got?

DE REVES. Oh, one of those things.... You wouldn't understand.

PRATTLE. Of course I'd understand. Let's have a look. (_The_ POET
_walks toward_ PRATTLE _and the screen. He protests no further._
PRATTLE _looks round the corner of the screen._) An altar.

DE REVES. (_removing the screen altogether_). That is all. What do
you make of it?

(_An altar of Greek design, shaped like a pedestal, is revealed.
Papers litter the floor all about it._)

PRATTLE. I say--you always were an untidy devil.

DE REVES. Well, what do you make of it?

PRATTLE. It reminds me of your room at Eton.

DE REVES. My room at Eton?

PRATTLE. Yes, you always had papers all over your floor.

DE REVES. Oh, yes--

PRATTLE. And what are these?

DE REVES. All these are poems; and this is my altar to Fame.

PRATTLE. To Fame?

DE REVES. The same that Homer knew.

PRATTLE. Good Lord!

DE REVES. Keats never saw her. Shelley died too young. She came
late at the best of times, now scarcely ever.

PRATTLE. But, my dear fellow, you don't mean that you think there
really is such a person?

DE REVES. I offer all my songs to her.

PRATTLE. But you don't mean you think you could actually
_see_ Fame?

DE REVES. We poets personify abstract things, and not poets only
but sculptors and painters too. All the great things of the world
are those abstract things.

PRATTLE. But what I mean is they're not really there, like you or
me.

DE REVES. To us these things are more real than men, they outlive
generations, they watch the passing of Kingdoms: we go by them
like dust; they are still here, unmoved, unsmiling.

PRATTLE. But, but, you can't think that you could _see_
Fame, you don't expect to _see_ it.

DE REVES. Not to me. Never to me. She of the golden trumpet and
Greek dress will never appear to me.... We all have our dreams.

PRATTLE. I say--what have you been doing all day?

DE REVES. I? Oh, only writing a sonnet.

PRATTLE. Is it a long one?

DE REVES. Not very.

PRATTLE. About how long is it?

DE REVES. About fourteen lines.

PRATTLE (_impressively_). I tell you what it is.

DE REVES. Yes?

PRATTLE. I tell you what. You've been overworking yourself. I
once got like that on board the Sandhurst, working for the
passing-out exam. I got so bad that I could have seen anything.

DE REVES. Seen anything?

PRATTLE. Lord, yes: horned pigs, snakes with wings, anything, one