“Sisyphus--that’s the chap!... Knew Aubrey was wrong about its being ’Erkyools.... Rummy things the old Greeks used to do! luckily for sculpture and the schoolmasters.” He bent his eyes on his idea again: “But what licks me is Fame!... Such a comical thing is Fame!... Now, look at this fellow Sisyphus: A great muscular chap pushes the dickens of a big stone up a hill, and keeps having to let it go again before he reaches the top. It ain’t much to build a reputation on. But Plato or some blanky poet comes along and writes it down--and that fellow goes pushing and heaving that stone up a hill through the ages. Then look at Aubrey--_he_ works just as hard at his confounded rhymes; yet no one reads _him_, but everyone goes on talking about ’Omer.” “Omar Khayyam?” asked Aubrey flippantly. “Khayyam be damned!” said the shock-headed sculptor. “No--old ’Omer ’imself. A fine, hairy old fellow, with big workmanlike head! Good solid old poetry! None of your rhymes and jingles and frills and coloured neckties and long nails and modern----” Lovegood tapped his glass on the arm of the judgment-seat: “It is the painful duty of the chair,” said he, “to remind our sculptor that he claims to have been infected with an _original_ and rippin’ idea.” Rippley shook himself peevishly: “This bleating minor poet keeps diggin’ his dandified elbow into my ideas until he makes ’em sulk in their tents like--like Ash-heels.” “Achilles, Rippley--Achilles!” cooed the poet gently. Rippley turned upon him: “I say, poet,” said he, walking up to the languid Aubrey, “you’re looking sallow; you poets don’t take enough exercise. I bet I put you under that sofa.” Aubrey rose to his feet in alarm, and took up a mild attitude of protest: “Now, don’t be vulgar, Rippley!” said he. But the thick-set little sculptor jumped at him and bore him to the ground. The two rolled on the carpet until Rippley, getting the grip of the plaintive poet, pushed his slim figure, expostulating, beneath the sofa, where he disappeared from view under its hangings, amidst a roar of applause. Lovegood coughed: “Poetry is fallen on rough times indeed,” said he. Pangbutt stood frowning at the riot. How these tomfools took him back to the years of his insignificance and Paris! The door was flung open and a stoutish woman, her hands thrust in the side-pockets of her jacket, stepped into the doorway with swaggering stride. Glancing calmly round the room, she called airily, in a strident, jolly voice: “How do, Pangbutt?” She nodded to him: “They told me this rotten party was to be at Jack Lawrence’s. But his place is as black as your blooming frontispiece. I’ve been huntin’ for this scum all over the shop, until a policeman sniggered and told me there was a deal of cock-crowin’ goin’ on here.” She turned to the roomful of them: “Hullo, boys! and what are you all up to?... Nothing unladylike, I hope, eh?” She laughed the question jovially. “No, no,” they all cried.