O.W. My dear Robbie, you are not nearly artful enough; but you are very kind. I will tell you one of my stories presently. Let us go on talking till the appropriate moment makes it more possible.... Is it I, or is it the ortolans that are still keeping us here? I do not mind; I would only like to know. R.R. To tell you the truth, Oscar, the ortolans were merely a delicate excuse. We are now waiting for the most perfectly forgetful, and the most regularly unpunctual person that any of us know. Do you mind if I cling for five minutes more to my belief that he really intends to meet us? O.W. Not at all; a charming experiment. Forgetfulness is a great gift. While he exercises it, we have more time for being happy where we are than we should otherwise have allowed ourselves. Who is our benefactor? R.R. I thought you might like to meet Harvey Jerrold again. I was keeping it behind the ortolans as a surprise for you. (_The name has evoked a look of eager, almost of startled, pleasure; and response comes with animation._) O.W. My dear Robbie; but how inventive of you! What a finishing touch to a circle which already seemed complete! I did not know that he was here. R.R. He only arrived last night. I ’phoned to his hotel and left a message for him asking him to join us. This morning he sent word that he would come. O.W. (_with just a shade of doubt in his tone_). Did you tell him who we all were? R.R. I only said “friends.” He knows all of us. O.W. If he has not, in the exercise of his gift, forgotten some of us. That—as I remember him—is possible. R.R. He can’t have forgotten you, at any rate, considering it was you who published his first plays for him. Or did you only write them? O.W. Ah! but he has done so much better since. Suppose he were now ashamed of them. He was one of those—true artists—who make a reputation before they do anything. That is the right way to begin; but few have the courage to persevere. It is so difficult. Yet he, of course, is the most complete artist who is able to remain perfect—doing nothing. R.R. I have heard you say that before. But for the sake of the others won’t you explain it? Your explanations are so much more illuminating than your statements, you know.