MAN OF THE WORLD. They've got to like it. They get none else. CLOWN. Can't you give us another chance? I'll lay we could make good. MAN OF THE WORLD. Sorry, sonny, but I don't see how you'd fit in. Watch this attraction I'm going to try over. CLOWN. You still rehearse, do you? MAN OF THE WORLD. Once. Would you like to watch? Then you'll see. CLOWN. What's it called? MAN OF THE WORLD. It's called "Love: a Disease", and it's Number seventy-six of the High Brow Ibsen series. It ain't got nothing to do with Ibsen really, but his is still a name that sells. He was a German professor of mathematics and highly respected in his day. I'll have you see a bit of one act. COLUMBINE. What's the plot? MAN OF THE WORLD. No plot. It's a home life story, a conversation. A man is telling a woman that he is just bored stiff with everything on earth. PANTALOON. Ah! MAN OF THE WORLD. And she doesn't know what to say. That's the first act. CLOWN. Gosh! MAN OF THE WORLD. In the next he's asking her advice as to whether a really tired man ought to marry. And she doesn't know. CLOWN. How long does that take? MAN OF THE WORLD. Quite a while. CLOWN. Which is the act we are going to see? MAN OF THE WORLD. The third. It contains the action. About half-way through he moves across to her and says: "Don't cry, little girl, I can always shoot myself!" And then he finds out that she is stone deaf from birth, and hasn't really heard a word he said. So she goes forth into the world to learn the Oral system, while he awaits her return, when he will begin again. Are you ready? I'll ring up. [Quite wonderfully the big cigar shifts to one corner of his mouth, almost in line with his ear, and he whistles shrilly. The curtain of the "six ads." flies away, and there's the automatic drama in full swing. Three canvas walls, liberally stencilled in the worst Munich style. And in this space are two pink gramophones on two green pedestals. One is gilt-lettered "Arthur." The other silver-lettered "Grace." The trumpets incline to each other a little, for this is a love scene going on. On a white framed space in the back wall, stage directions are written moviely. This one spells out "Arthur is still speaking. He crosses his legs and takes an asthma cigarette." Then the gilt-lettered phonograph croaks:-- ARTHUR. After all, what is love but a disease of the imagination? Don't cry, little girl, I can always shoot myself! GRACE. [Who croaks an octave higher.] I'm not crying. Tell me more. [Moviely the stage direction comes: "He leans forward." ARTHUR. But why should there be one law for women and another for men? One law for childhood and another for old age? Why skirts, why trousers? Why those monotonies of sensation and experience? Why this unreality, this hypocrisy, this cowardice, this exaltation of the super-sham? Why...? [Moviely at the back is written: "She leans forward, too."