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 of
your winged horses even. They gave me some stuff called bromide for it.
You take a rest.

DE REVES: But my dear fellow, you don't understand at all. I merely said
that abstract things are to a poet as near and real and visible as one
of your bookmakers or barmaids.

PRATTLE: I know. You take a rest.

DE REVES: Well, perhaps I will. I'd come with you to that musical comedy
you're going to see, only I'm a bit tired after writing this; it's a
tedious job. I'll come another night.

PRATTLE: How do you know I'm going to see a musical comedy?

DE REVES: Well, where would you go? _Hamlet_'s[8] on at the Lord
Chamberlain's. You're not going there.

PRATTLE: Do I look like it?

DE REVES: No.

PRATTLE: Well, you're quite right. I'm going to see "The Girl from
Bedlam." So long. I must push off now. It's getting late. You take a
rest. Don't add another line to that sonnet; fourteen's quite enough.
You take a rest. Don't have any dinner to-night, just rest. I was like
that once myself. So long.

DE REVES: So long.

[_Exit_ PRATTLE. DE REVES _returns to his table and sits down._

Good old Dick! He's the same as ever. Lord, how time passes.

_He takes his pen and his sonnet and makes a few alterations._

Well, that's finished. I can't do any more to it.

[_He rises and goes to the screen; he draws back part of it and goes up
to the altar. He is about to place his sonnet reverently at the foot of
the altar amongst his other verses._

No, I will not put it there. This one is worthy of the altar.

[_He places the sonnet upon the altar itself._

If that sonnet does not give me fame, nothing that I have done before
will give it to me, nothing that I ever will do.

[_He replaces the screen and returns to his chair at the table. Twilight
is coming on. He sits with his