ants to keep on sticking labels
on silly bottles at so many farthings a gross. That isn't existing!
That's--sus--substratum. None of us want to be what we are, or to do
what we do. Except as a sort of basis. What do we want? You know. I
know. Nobody confesses. What we all want to be is something perpetually
young and beautiful--young Joves--young Joves, Ponderevo"--his voice
became loud, harsh and declamatory--"pursuing coy half-willing nymphs
through everlasting forests."...

There was a just-perceptible listening hang in the work about us.

"Come downstairs," I interrupted, "we can talk better there."

"I can talk better here," he answered.

He was just going on, but fortunately the implacable face of Mrs.
Hampton Diggs appeared down the aisle of bottling machines.

"All right," he said, "I'll come."

In the little sanctum below, my uncle was taking a digestive pause after
his lunch and by no means alert. His presence sent Ewart back to the
theme of modern commerce, over the excellent cigar my uncle gave him. He
behaved with the elaborate deference due to a business magnate from an
unknown man.

"What I was pointing out to your nephew, sir," said Ewart, putting both
elbows on the table, "was the poetry of commerce. He doesn't, you know,
seem to see it at all."

My uncle nodded brightly. "Whad I tell 'im," he said round his cigar.

"We are artists. You and I, sir, can talk, if you will permit me, as one
artist to another. It's advertisement has--done it. Advertisement has
revolutionised trade and industry; it is going to revolutionise the
world. The old merchant used to tote about commodities; the new one
creates values. Doesn't need to tote. He takes something that isn't
worth anything--or something that isn't particularly worth anything--and
he makes it worth something. He takes mustard that is just like anybody
else's mustard, and he goes about saying, shouting, singing, chalking
on walls, writing inside people's books, putting it everywhere, 'Smith's
Mustard is the Best.' And behold it is the best!"

"True," said my uncle, chubbily and with a dreamy sense of mysticism;
"true!"

"It's just like an artist; he takes a lump of white marble on the verge
of a lime-kiln, he chips it about, he makes--he makes a monument to
himself--and others--a monument the world will not willingly let die.
Talking of mustard, sir, I was at Clapham Junction the other day, and
all the banks are overgrown with horse radish that