into a
jig-saw puzzle, serve it with a dazzle dressing and call it the New Poetry.

_L.E._ Have your joke, if you will. But, more important still, Applecart is
a rebel against humanity and all its fetishes, social, ethical and
political.

_P.E. (startled)._ A Bolshie, I suppose you mean?

_L.E._ The artist is proof against all these vulgar terms of abuse, culled
from the hustings. Call him a Pussyfoot as well; you cannot shake him from
his pinnacle.

_P.E._ Yes, but look here--he's just the sort of pernicious agitator we're
out against in _The Crisis_--at least in my department. My special article
this morning--three thickly-leaded columns--actually revealed the existence
of a most insidious plot to undermine the restraining influence of the
House of Lords by the spread of Bolshevik propaganda masquerading as
literature. You see, there's a certain section of the Lords, mainly new
creations who've only recently been released from various employments, who
now for the first time in their lives have leisure for reading; then
there's the spread of education among the sporting Peers. Well, these
people are ready to succumb to all sorts of poisonous doctrines, if they're
served up in what I presume to be the fashionable mode of the moment; and I
expect your precious Applecart is one of the Bolsh agents who are laying
the trap. You'll have to stop booming him, you know. He's not doing the
paper any good.

_L.E._ My dear Sir, literature takes no account of the fads and fancies of
party politics. And I gather from you that party politics have no use for
literature except from a propagandist view. Let us be content to go our own
ways in peace.

_P.E._ Yes, that's all very well for you and me, but what about the Chief?
How does he reconcile these absolutely conflicting standpoints? And what
does the public think of it all?

_L.E. (confidentially)._ Between you and me, the Chief knows his public.
And the public knows its papers. The last thing it wants from us is
consistency, which is always boring. Besides (_still more confidentially_),
the public doesn't take us quite so seriously as we like to pretend.

_P.E._ H'm, maybe you're right. As a matter of fact (_lowering his voice_)
I sometimes think I'm a bit of a Socialist myself.

_L.E._ Really? As for me (_conspiratorially_), I adore TENNYSON, and EZRA
POUND fills me with a secret wrath. Still, the public--

_P.E._ Ah, the public--! Have a drink?

[_They pledge ea