Ha, ha, ha! [_Giving himself a shake._] Even so it can't be
done, Robbie; though I'm grateful to you for your amiable little plot.
[_Walking about._] Heavens above, if Ottoline married me, she'd be
puffing my wares on the sly before the honeymoon was half over!

ROOPE.

And a jolly good job too. [_Moving to the left, peevishly._] The truth
is, my dear Phil, you're a crank--an absolute crank--on the subject of
the--ah--the natural desire of some people to keep themselves in the
public eye. Mercy on us, if it comes to that, _I'm_ an advertiser!

PHILIP.

If it comes to that, you miserable old sinner, you _are_.

ROOPE.

I admit it, frankly. I own it gratifies me exceedingly to see my little
dinner-parties and tea-parties, here or at my club, chronicled in the
press. And it gratifies my friends also. Many of them wouldn't honour
me at all if my list of guests wasn't in the fashionable intelligence
next morning.

PHILIP.

Oh----!

ROOPE.

Yes, you may roar. I declare I shudder to think of the difference it
'ud make to me socially if I didn't advertise.

PHILIP.

Robbie, I blush for you.

ROOPE.

Tosh! It's an advertising age.

PHILIP.

[_Stalking to the fireplace._] It's a beastly vulgar age.

ROOPE.

It's the age I happen to live in, and I accommodate myself to it.
[_Pacing the room as he warms to his theme._] And if it's necessary for
a private individual such as myself to advertise, as I maintain it is,
how much more necessary is it for _you_ to do so--a novelist, a poet, a
would-be playwright, a man with something to sell! Dash it, they've got
to advertise soap, and soap's essential! Why not literature, which
_isn't_? And yet you won't find the name of Mr. Philip Mackworth in the
papers from one year's end to another, except in a scrubby criticism
now and again.

PHILIP.

[_Calmly._] Excuse me, there are the publisher's announcements.

ROOPE.

Publishers' announcements! I'm not speaking of the _regular_ advertising
columns. What I want to see are paragraphs concerning you mixed up with
the news of the day, information about you and your habits, interviews
with you, le