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, letters from you on every conceivable topic---- PHILIP. [_Grinning._] _Do_ you! ROOPE. [_Joining_ PHILIP.] Oh, my dear Phil, I entreat you, feed the papers! It isn't as if you hadn't talent; you _have_. Advertising _minus_ talent goes a long way; advertising _plus_ talent is irresistible. Feed the papers. The more you do for them, the more they'll do for you. _Quid pro quo._ To the advertiser shall advertisement be given. Newspaper men are the nicest chaps in the world. Feed them gratis with bright and amusin' "copy," as you term it, and they'll love and protect you for ever. PHILIP. Not for ever, Robbie. Whom the press loves die young. ROOPE. It's fickle, you mean--some day it'll turn and rend you? Perhaps. Still, if you make hay while the sun shines---- PHILIP. The sun! You don't call _that_ the sun! [_Disdainfully._] P'ssh! ROOPE.