W. P. KER (_in deep Scotch_). Non Dubitat. (_He does not speak again_.) P. G. KONODY. Oh, Mr. Phillips, do tell me _exactly_ what _you_ think of this artist! CLAUDE PHILLIPS. I think he wanted a good smacking. P. G. KONODY. Ah, yes, his art _has_ a smack about it. (_Aside_.) Good heading for the _Daily Mail_, 'Art with a smack.' (_Writes in catalogue_.) WILL ROTHENSTEIN. When I see pictures of this kind, my dear Gersaint, they seem to me to explain your existence. An artist without a conscience . . . (_Sees_ ROGER FRY.) My dear Fry, what are _you_ doing here? Buying for New York? (_Laughs meaningly_.) ROGER FRY. Oh, no; but I hear Gersaint has a very fine picture by the Maitresse of the Moulin Rouge. Weale says it is School of Gheel (_pronounced Kail_). WILL ROTHENSTEIN. Kail Yard I should think; do look at these things. ROGER FRY (_vaguely_). Who are they by? Oh, yes, Dubedat, of course. [FRY _and_ ROTHENSTEIN _regard picture with disdain_; _it withers under their glance_. _Stage illusion by_ MASKELYNE _and_ THEODORE COOK. STEPNEY _places a red star on it_. GERSAINT. Well, Mr. Bowyer Nichols, I hope we shall have a good long notice in the _Westminster Gazette_. Now if there is any drawing . . . BOWYER NICHOLS (_very stiffly_). No, there isn't. I don't think the Exhibition sufficiently important; everything seems to me cribbed: most of the pictures look like reproductions of John, Orpen or Neville Lytton. GERSAINT. Ah, no doubt, influenced by Neville Lytton. That portrait of Mr. Cutler Walpole has a Neville Lytton feeling. Neville Lytton in his earlier manner. _Enter_ SIR PATRICK CULLEN, SIR RALPH BLOOMFIELD BONNINGTON _and_ SIR COLENSO RIDGEON. SIR C. RIDGEON. Ah, Sir Patrick, I have just heard that the pictures are for sale; now I am going to plunge a little. I think they will rise in value; and by the way I want to ask your opinion as a scientific man. If I treat four artists with _virus obscaenum_ for three weeks, what will be the condition of the remaining artists in the fourth week? SIR P. CULLEN. Colenso, Colenso, you ought to have been a senior wrangler and then abolished. SIR C. RIDGEON. What a cynic you are. All the same I've had great successes, though Dubedat _was_ one of our failures. A rather anaemic member of the New English Art Club come to me for treatment, and in less than a year he was an Associate of the Royal Academy; what do you say to that? SIR P. CULLEN. Out of Phagocyte, out of mind. SIR R. B. B. My dear Sir Patrick, how prejudiced you are. Take MacColl's case: a typical instance of _morbus ferox ars nova anglicana_: under dear Colenso he became an official at the Tate. SIR C. RIDGEON. Then there's Sir Charles Holroyd, you remember his high tempera? SIR P. CULLEN. There has been a relapse I hear from the catalogue. SIR R. B. B. How grossly unfair; that is a false bulletin issued by the former nurse: 'the evil that men do lives after them.'