The Big Drum Part 3

PHILIP.

[_Nodding._] Yes. The following week her engagement to de Chaumie was announced.

ROOPE.

[_After a slight pause._] Well, in spite of all this, I'm convinced she was genuinely attached to you, Phil--as fond of you as you were of her.

PHILIP.

[_Resting his head on his hands._] Oh, shut up!

ROOPE.

Anyhow, here's an opportunity of testing it, dear excellent friend.

She's been a widow twelve months; you need have no delicacy on that score.

PHILIP.

[_Looking up._] Why, do you suggest----?

ROOPE.

Certainly; and without delay. I hear there's a shoal of men after her, including Tim Barradell.

PHILIP.

[_With a grim smile._] "Bacon" Barradell?

ROOPE.

[_a.s.sentingly._] They say Sir Timothy's in constant attendance.

PHILIP.

And what chance, do you imagine, would a poor literary cove stand against a real live baronet--and the largest bacon-curer in Ireland?

ROOPE.

[_Rubbing his chin._] You never know. Women are romantic creatures. She _might_ prefer the author of those absorbing works of fiction whose pages often wrap up Tim Barradell's rashers.

PHILIP.

[_Rising._] Ha, ha, ha! [_Giving himself a shake._] Even so it can't be done, Robbie; though I'm grateful to you for your amiable little plot.

[_Walking about._] Heavens above, if Ottoline married me, she'd be puffing my wares on the sly before the honeymoon was half over!

ROOPE.

And a jolly good job too. [_Moving to the left, peevishly._] The truth is, my dear Phil, you're a crank--an absolute crank--on the subject of the--ah--the natural desire of some people to keep themselves in the public eye. Mercy on us, if it comes to that, _I'm_ an advertiser!

PHILIP.

If it comes to that, you miserable old sinner, you _are_.

ROOPE.

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 fas.h.i.+onable 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.

Tos.h.!.+ 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.