(_There is a short silence. ROYCE leaves the picture and comes slowly towards the writing-table._) OLIVER (_shaking his head_). Oh, no! ROYCE (_turning round_). What? OLIVER. That’s not the table where the great masterpieces are written, and that’s not the pen they are written with. ROYCE. My dear fellow—— OLIVER. Is there a pen there, by the way? ROYCE (_looking_). Yes. Yours? OLIVER. The family’s. You’ve no idea how difficult it is to keep pens there. ROYCE. Why, where do they go to? OLIVER. The United States, mostly. Everybody who’s let in here makes for the table sooner or later and pinches one of the pens. “Lands’ sake, what a head,” they say, waving at the picture with their right hand and feeling behind their back with the left; it’s wonderful to see ’em. Tim, my sister—Tim and I glued a pen on to the tray once when one of ’em was coming, and watched him clawing at it for about five minutes, and babbling about the picture the whole time. I should think he knew what the poet Blayds looked like by the time he got the pen into his pocket. ROYCE (_going back to the picture_). Well, it’s a wonderful head. OLIVER. Yes, I will say that for the old boy, he does look like somebody. ROYCE. When was this done? OLIVER. Oh, about eighteen years ago. ROYCE. Yes. That was about when I met him. OLIVER. You never told me you’d met him. Did you meet _me_ by any chance? ROYCE. No. OLIVER. I was five then, and people who came to see Blayds the poet patted the head of Blayds the poet’s grandson and said: “Are you going to be a poet too, my little man, when you grow up?” ROYCE (_smiling_). And what did Blayds the poet’s grandson say? OLIVER. Urged on by Blayds the poet’s son-in-law, Blayds the poet’s grandson offered to recite his grandfather’s well-known poem, “A Child’s Thoughts on Waking.” I’m sorry you missed it, Royce, but it’s no good asking for it now. ROYCE (_half to himself_). It was at Bournemouth. He was there with his daughter. Not your mother, she would have been younger than that. OLIVER. You mean Aunt Isobel. ROYCE. Isobel, yes. (_After a little silence_) Isobel Blayds. Yes, that was eighteen years ago. I was about your age. OLIVER. A fine handsome young fellow like me? ROYCE. Yes. OLIVER. Any grandfathers living? ROYCE. No. OLIVER. Lucky devil. But I don’t suppose you realised it. ROYCE. No, I don’t think I realised it. OLIVER (_thinking it out_). I suppose if I had a famous father I shouldn’t mind so much. I should feel that it was partly my doing. I mean that he wouldn’t have begun to be famous until I had been born. But the poet Blayds was a world-wide celebrity long before I came on the scene, and I’ve had it hanging over me ever since.... Why do you suppose I am a member of the club? ROYCE. Well, why not? It’s a decent club. We are all very happy there. OLIVER. Yes, but why did they elect _me_? ROYCE. Oh, well, if we once began to ask ourselves that——